U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-Texas) yesterday unveiled a bill that is designed to address several issues that surfaced in the aftermath of the January 29 midair collision by Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (KDCA), including a requirement for all aircraft—including military operations—to use ADS-B technology and for newly manufactured aircraft to be equipped with ADS-B Out and In. Sixty-seven people died when a U.S. Army Black Hawk collided with a PSA Airlines Bombardier CRJ700 on final approach to KDCA.
Introduced six months after that accident, as well as just ahead of a three-day NTSB hearing on the events surrounding it, the Rotor Operations Transparency and Oversight Reform (ROTOR) Act closes a “loophole” that enabled military operators to turn off ADS-B, permitting only exceptions for “sensitive government missions” and not training flights. Following the accident, investigators found that the military branches routinely turned off ADS-B, and that was the case with the Black Hawk, which was on a training mission on January 29. Along those lines, the bill repeals a 2019 congressional measure that exempted the Department of Defense from ADS-B transmission requirements.
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