A year ago Thursday, 67 people died when a military helicopter collided with an American Airlines flight attempting to land at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Now, in a rare example of America’s legislative process working as intended, a bill to prevent a repeat of this kind of tragedy could soon become law.
Last year’s rare catastrophe inspired the Rotor Act, which would close safety loopholes while forcing the military and Federal Aviation Administration to review their procedures around DCA. Critically, the legislation recognizes that it’s the government’s responsibility to fix the problem.
The Justice Department accepted liability for the accident in a December court filing, saying the Army helicopter crew and air traffic controllers each failed to do their jobs on Jan. 29, 2025. The helicopter had a faulty altimeter, which was a known problem before the accident, and the controllers failed to warn the airliner of the helicopter’s flight path, as it should have under established procedure.
The National Transportation Safety Board, meeting on Tuesday, said the FAA failed to act over the years on numerous concerns about National’s airspace, specifically the close proximity of military helicopters and commercial flights. NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy was appalled that “absolutely no one in the FAA did the work to figure out there was only 75 feet” separating the route used by helicopters and the approach used by planes into Reagan. The FAA announced last week that the helicopter route has been permanently closed.
The crafting of the Rotor Act represents a refreshing case of serious legislating to address a narrow problem, not a knee-jerk reaction to “do something” after a tragedy. Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Ranking Member Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) worked with the Pentagon, FAA, NTSB and aviation groups to hammer out solutions.
Their bill requires a national review of military flight routes near commercial airports. That might sound like common sense, but the NTSB found that the FAA has not been doing such reviews for years. A mandate from Congress will make a difference.
The bill also requires all civil and military aircraft to use technology called Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast. ADS-B is especially useful in low-altitude situations where other systems are less effective. A version which broadcasts aircraft location and speed data once per second is already required, but military aircraft had significant latitude to opt out. The Rotor Act narrows those exceptions to cover truly top-secret flights, not the training mission the helicopter was on during last year’s crash.
Another version of this technology allows pilots to see information broadcast by other planes, but it’s not currently required. Newer commercial and business jets have it, and there are cheap ways for general aviation pilots to get it on tablets they already use. The Rotor Act would require it for everyone.
The NTSB has recommended the adoption of the incoming and outgoing versions of this technology 17 times since 2006. The agency’s simulation of the DCA accident showed that if the airplane had the inbound data and the helicopter had the outgoing data, the pilots on the plane would have gotten an alert 59 seconds before the collision, rather than 19 seconds. And the helicopter crew would have been alerted 48 seconds before, rather than never.
Homendy said the current standard of requiring outbound, but not incoming, ADS-B is “like having a conversation with a wall.” She seemed exasperated at the FAA for not requiring it. “ADS-B would have helped prevent this crash,” she told reporters.
House Transportation Committee Chairman Sam Graves (R-Missouri) said earlier this month that he’s concerned about how requiring inbound ADS-B would affect general aviation. But fellow Missouri Republican Bob Onder is also a general aviation pilot, and he supports the Rotor Act. Tuesday’s NTSB proceedings make clear it’s necessary.
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