Senator says rely on NTSB facts and investigation; Focus on safety and hiring more air traffic controllers, not firing

This morning, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, joined CNN to discuss the devastating crash on Wednesday involving American Airlines flight 5342 and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River near Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA). Watch the full segment below.

“These are such horrific events and they take devastating tolls on people's families that they may never recover from. The best thing we can do for them is get them answers,” Sen. Cantwell said during the interview. “These are things we're going to have to get from the NTSB. But Jennifer Homendy is an excellent, excellent administrator.”

“The FAA has the ultimate authority to always monitor the flight paths and systems and say what is safe and what is operational. That rests with the FAA Administrator. I hope we will get an FAA Administrator very soon because I thought Mike Whitaker was doing a good job at trying to address our safety issues, and now we don't have an Administrator,” Sen. Cantwell continued.

“The standards for air traffic controllers haven't changed. They're the same standards, and people have to meet them or you don't get the job,” Sen. Cantwell said in response to President Trump. “What is a problem is that we haven't had enough air traffic controllers. You have been stretching the people that do work there, sometimes making them work six days in a row. We fought to improve this by adding 3,000 new air traffic controllers. We don't want to cut back on air traffic controllers. We want to have more. We want them to have enough rest. And we want to make sure that the FAA does its oversight job of the airspace and air traffic controllers. And do we have what it takes to monitor any situation?”