All aircraft flying near Ronald Reagan National Airport will be asked to broadcast their positions to air traffic controller.
This policy, which entered into force on Thursday, was detected after it was revealed that technology in an army helicopter collided with a passenger plane near the airport in January was stopped at the time of the deadly accident.
Technology is known as automatic monitoring broadcasting, and it broadcasts in the plane, its height and speed, and may allow air traffic monitors to better track the helicopters. Military helicopters can stop technology during the so -called government tasks, which occur during national emergencies and ensure that the place of senior government officials is still not available.
The change of policy was revealed as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was pressed, and military officials were pressured by the members of the Senate to explain how the army helicopter could have collided, which was on a training mission, with the passenger plane, which came to land on a road that was largely smuggled.
“The fact of the matter is, we have to do what is better,” said Chris Roshilo, the official of the Acting Federal Aviation Administration, said on Thursday. “We have to determine the trends, and we have to get to know how to use data and when we put corrective procedures in place. We must implement them carefully.”
Mr. Roshilo said there will be some exemptions for the new policy, although it was not discussed during the session. He appeared in front of the Senate Committee with Jennifer Humandi, Chairman of the National Transport Safety Council and Brag. General Matt Braman, Director of Aviation in the Army. For approximately two hours, they answered questions about the continuous investigation into the January crash, which killed 67 people.
The first hearing was to investigate the collision by the sub -committee, the Aviation Committee of the Trade, Science and Transport Committee of the Senate. Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican in Texas, who heads the Trade Committee, said that military operations and other operations continued to interfere in passenger flights at Reagan Airport. An example was martyred on the first of March, when several commercial aircraft at the airport reported alerts of nearby aircraft, in some cases associated with mechanical instructions to take urgent measures to avoid disruption.
Mr. Cruz said that the warnings were caused by the secret and navy service, “incorrectly anti -technology test.”
Mr. Cruz said: “Let me say that this is very disturbing after only one month of the death of 67 people while following DCA, the secret service and the Pentagon will unintentionally cause multiple flights to receive alerts in the urgent cockpit recommended to connect to the dodging,” using the first letters that determine the airport, which is located in Virginia, via the Bottomac River from the center of Washington.
Senator Jerry Moran, a Republican in Kansas, who heads the Airways sub -committee, and Maria Kaneuel, was asked in Washington, Mr. Roshilo, about the reason for the federal aviation administration lost warning signs regarding the possibility of collision of military helicopters and commercial aircraft at Reagan Airport.
A Initial report from NTSB I found that a helicopter and commercial aircraft collided at least once a month near Reagan from 2011 to 2024, raising concerns about how the Federal Aviation Administration ignored such a danger in one of the most crowded airports in the country.
Mrs. Humandi and Shawn Duffy, Minister of Transport, criticized the Federal Aviation Administration for not realizing the repeat of the relative at the airport and addressing issues.
In response, Mr. Roshilo admitted that the agency had missed decisive signs.
“I will work closely with NTSB to find out what happened here and make sure that it does not happen again.” “
