A U.S. Senator has read the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Preliminary Report on the midair collision at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (KDCA) and wants some answers. Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) is chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Aviation, Space, and Innovation and has called a hearing of the subcommittee set for March 27.
The Sub committee chairman only has to look into the mirror to find out what led to this accident. Until Congress allows the Secret Service to close DCA, not much if anything will change. If a GA aircraft where involved, the FAA would probably ban GA flights in the DCA class B, oh wait, GA is already severely restricted from DCA!
House and senate politicians have been the principal proponents of more traffic into DCA. Our other KS senator, Roger Marshall on the night of the accident admitted, (bragged) that he had been one of those. Jerry Moran is simply another fox checking the chicken coop for security against foxes.
The loss of 67 lives is the heart of this tragedy. Politics must take a backseat, the focus should be on what went wrong and how to prevent it from happening again.
Performative, and potentially dangerous to pontificate this early.
Of course they don’t understand they should wait until the NTSB and FAA are finished.
This will likely be a dog and pony show of previously unseen proportions. How many of the committees members are capable to properly name certain parts of an aircraft, let alone have any subject matter knowledge beyond the level of parrotted Youtube accident investigators?
Amazing to be living in this historically significant era of complete and institutionalized political insanity.
A very dangerous rabbit hole to go down. If we let the Secret Service close DCA, you can guarantee that they will then shut down every GA airport anywhere near any politician’s home, work place, or vacation place.
The only agency that should have anything to do with airport closures is the FAA. As flawed as they are, one thing they look out for is themselves, and closing airports means less for them to do. It just happens that their self-preservation also happens to be good for GA, and thus good for the economy.
All of the alphabet soup agencies, military, pilot unions, pilots, airlines……everyone……knew there was a traffic problem at KDCA a long time ago……yet the the problem continued until one night when it showed it’s ugly face.
The key players should be jailed, or at a minimum fired. Exactly the same penalty that the DOT Chair wants to bestow upon pilots who have a one-time lapse in judgement.
Let’s make some nationwide changes now. There is no reason to wait. First, in airspace where civilian traffic is mixed with military traffic, all will be on VHF. All concerned need to be hearing both sides of the conversation. DJT you could fix the problem before lunch time today with the stroke of a pen. We don’t need to wait two years for this fix to be recommended by the NTSB.
The reason army helicopters were allowed to fly and train there is known.
Lawmakers have to make decisions that will impact their comfort, I hope they choose ORM Safety.
After a very pompous committee completes “demanding” answers from the witnesses they subpoena, they can then pompously convene in front of the Capital building and with invited news cameras and microphones present, pompously tell the world how they have determined “must fix issues” issues that they are going to present to the NTSB and FAA who are dragging their feet in dealing with this. And after they have gained the news coverage that was intended, they will go back to just screwing off again. Just an opinion.
Jason, I couldn’t agree more. Most of the committee probably couldn’t tell a pitot tube from a hot dog, yet they’ll sit there acting like expert accident investigators. It’s frustrating to see something this serious turned into a stage for grandstanding.
I find no evidence that Sen Jerry Moran has any significant aviation experience. Why would that be concerning when the Chairperson of the NTSB has no significant aviation experience.
You’re right, it’s frustrating when individuals without aviation know-how are calling the shots. Politics aside, 67 lives were lost, and that’s what needs to stay front and center.
Here’s a radical idea… How about banning night helicopter flights below 500’AGL across the final approach path for Class Bravo Airports? Or at least training flights involving use of Night Vision Goggles? Or maybe planned helicopter flights across all final approach paths below 500’AGL? Not so complicated… If the Army had planned that across final at Andrews AFB there might have been a shoot-down…
Yup, the same people who have us ROFL at their utter ignorance of mundane IT-related knowledge, exposed when they hold hearings with CEOs of social media companies, suddenly turn into solemn and wise graybeards when it comes to aviation. If it’s anything like the 737 MAX fiasco they’ll do all the talking at the hearing and woe betide anyone who mentions Jedi mind tricks—a Senator from TX will go ballistic. They’ll seek the opinion of the most inappropriate people and they’ll produce a report with very serious accusations they call “findings” even though they didn’t really find anything, proven by the fact that the evidence and analyses to support their findings will consist of links to news media articles, some of which will be dead by the time the report is published. Worse, it’s not just a dog and pony show… they’ll then pass legislation based on the hearing! … and quietly undo it a couple of years later when someone manages to make them see how stupid and dangerous it is.
The previous NTSB Chairperson had aviation experience—as a pilot—but gave blatantly false testimony to Congress about airplane design and design analysis, not once but twice, His testimony made me wonder how he managed to fly a commercial jet with such a warped understanding of system functionality as well as cast doubt on the integrity of NTSB investigations and the validity of their findings. Right on cue, the NTSB produced a report—even though they had no jurisdiction—that grasped at straws and lacked logic.
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