Cantwell Calls for Permanent Helicopter Restrictions Near DCA Following NTSB Preliminary Report on Fatal Jan. 29 Aviation Accident 

Senator Maria Cantwell, Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, released the following statement regarding the National Transportation Safety Board's (NTSB) preliminary report on the Jan. 29 mid-air collision involving an American Airlines flight and a Black Hawk military helicopter near DCA that resulted in the deaths of 67 people:

“The NTSB report provides ample data that this helicopter route and the commercial aviation landing route never should have been allowed to co-exist. A permanent restriction of this helicopter route needs to be urgently implemented by the FAA today.

"The data also raises serious questions to how such a route was allowed to continue when alarm bells were literally going off. The lack of FAA oversight of this data and warning signals has to change.   

"Congress should work in a bipartisan fashion on legislative solutions that mandate more FAA oversight of these helicopter routes.  And we should work collectively with the White House to get full implementation of the NextGen platform to give aircraft and pilots true global positioning systems through ADS-B.” 

On Friday, March 7, Sen. Cantwell sent a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth requesting that the Department of Defense (DoD) clarify how often and why it operates aircraft in the National Capital Region without Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) Out activated.

ADS-B Out is a crucial safety feature that, when activated, automatically sends a beacon out from an operating flight to provide air traffic control towers a picture of an aircraft's precise location without relying solely on radar. The Black Hawk helicopter involved in January's fatal accident near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport was equipped with ADS-B Out yet was not transmitting ADS-B Out.

“In 2010, the Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) under the Obama Administration issued a final rule to require all aircraft equipped with Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) Out to operate in ‘transmit mode’ at all times,” Sen. Cantwell wrote.  

But in 2019, shortly before that rule went into effect, the first Trump Administration created an exemption for “sensitive operations conducted by Federal, State and local government entities in matters of national defense, homeland security, intelligence and law enforcement.” However, exemptions would “not be routinely used.”

Then, in a June 2023 letter to D.C. Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, the DOD stated that in the National Capital Region, “the Army Aviation Brigade at Fort Belvoir and Marine Helicopter Squadron One execute 100 percent of their missions with the ADS-B off.” 

“It is not credible to assert that each of the several thousand helicopter flights operated annually in the National Capital Region is sufficiently sensitive to merit a blanket exemption to operate without a critical safety feature like ADS-B Out activated,” wrote Sen. Cantwell.