On the one-year anniversary of the tragic mid-air crash that took place a year ago between an American Airlines jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River near Washington, D.C., U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett honored the victims. A video he released remembers the 67 lives lost, and announced two news bills to upgrade collision avoidance technology in military and civilian aircraft to help prevent future tragedies.
“We learned from that [accident] some of the systemic failures that took place that we needed to improve upon,” said Barrett. “I worked closely with members of the military back home in Michigan in the same unit that I retired from to work on improvements that we could make to upgrade our military fleet to have the same collision avoidance systems that our civilian airlines have. Had those systems been in place on that Army Black Hawk helicopter, I think there’s a high likelihood that this tragedy could have been avoided.
“We worked hard to get that language into the annual Defense Authorization Act that passed last year with overwhelming bipartisan support. And building off of that, we want to make sure that that technology gets integrated into our military fleet and that we also change the process that our military follows so that everybody can know that they are traveling in the safest way possible.”
The Military ADS-B Out Loophole Act and the Next-Gen Collision Avoidance Assistance Act build on legislation Barrett introduced shortly after the Potomac River crash, which was signed into law last month as part of the National Defense Authorization Act. Barrett’s Military Helicopter Training Safety Act began the process of installing the same crash avoidance technology in military helicopters that commercial planes have, also known as TCAS.
The Military ADS-B Out Loophole Act (H.R. 7240) would close loopholes that allow Department of Defense aircraft to turn off Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast Out (ADS-B Out) equipment, which notifies other pilots and air traffic control of their location. The bill would set clear standards to ensure the military only disables ADS-B Out in truly sensitive missions where secrecy is required. The Army helicopter had this software turned off during the Potomac River collision, so the American Airlines pilots could not see the Black Hawk on their ADS-B In system.
The Next-Gen Collision Avoidance Assistance Act (H.R. 7239) requires the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to take steps to advance the deployment of next-generation collision avoidance technology — known as the Airborne Collision Avoidance System-X (ACAS-X) — in both military and civilian aircraft. This system will give better alerts to pilots to prevent mid-air collisions, especially in lower altitudes where existing collision avoidance technology does not activate.
