The head of the Federal Aviation Administration told Congress during a hearing Thursday about a midair collision over Washington, D.C., that killed 67 people that the agency must do more to ensure flying remains safe.
The FAA's artificial intelligence-led review aimed at identifying safety threats at other airports with similar helicopter-airplane congestion should be finished in a couple weeks, said Chris Rocheleau, the agency’s acting administrator.
During the hearing, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board and members of Congress again questioned how the FAA hadn’t noticed an alarming number of close calls near Ronald Reagan National Airport and addressed the problem before the January collision between an Army helicopter and a jetliner. The collision over the Potomac River was the nation's deadliest plane crash since November 2001.
“We have to do better,” Rocheleau said. “We have to identify trends, we have to get smarter about how we use data, and when we put corrective actions in place, we must execute them.”
The FAA is using AI to dig into the millions of reports it collects to assess other places with busy helicopter traffic including: Boston, New York, Baltimore-Washington, Detroit, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and along the Gulf Coast.
Investigators have highlighted 85 close calls around Reagan airport in the three years before the crash that should have signaled a growing safety problem. Rocheleau told the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation that every close call is investigated and the data was reviewed before, but this alarming trend was missed.
NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said there clearly was an issue with identifying trends in the data the FAA collects.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said he learned that the Secret Service and U.S. Navy triggered a rash of collision alarms in planes around Reagan Airport on March 1 while testing anti-drone technology that used a similar frequency to the one used by planes' warning systems. Cruz said that happened despite a warning from the FAA against doing it.
“This is deeply disturbing that just a month after 67 people died while on approach to DCA (Reagan Airport), that the Secret Service and Pentagon would inadvertently cause multiple flights to receive urgent cockpit alerts recommending evasive action,” Cruz said.
Helicopter traffic around Reagan National has been restricted since January any time planes use the same runway the American Airlines plane that crashed was approaching when it collided with the helicopter. At the NTSB's urging, the FAA permanently banned that particular helicopter route under most circumstances. If a helicopter does use the route, planes are prohibited from taking off or landing on that runway.
The U.S. Army’s head of aviation Brig. Gen. Matthew Braman acknowledged that helicopters are still flying over the nation's capital with a key system broadcasting their locations turned off during missions. The “ADS-B out data” is designed to let air traffic controllers track a helicopter's location.
Cruz said this is “shocking and unacceptable.”
The Army says the helicopters' highest-priority mission is evacuating top government officials in the event of an attack. Braman said the military has changed its policies governing when aircraft must transmit their location, but many helicopters still fly without the system on.
There were exceptions in the airspace above Washington that allowed Army and other government aircraft to fly without transmitting, or fly in a mode that allowed less information to be transmitted to avoid broadcasting potentially sensitive missions to the public. Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell highlighted a letter from the Department of Homeland Security saying that all Customs and Border Protection flights in the region were also covered by the exceptions.
Rocheleau said FAA plans to now require all aircraft flying immediately around Reagan National to broadcast their locations. But Homendy said it is also important to inspect that equipment to make sure it actually works.
Braman also said the policies governing those different transmission modes — and the level of seniority needed in the Army to waive the transmissions — has since been elevated.
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Associated Press writer Tara Copp contributed to this report from Washington D.C.
