"In an unusually harsh rebuke, the nation's top safety investigator voiced concerns about a provision in the defense policy bill before Congress on Wednesday, warning that it would undermine aviation safety improvements made after a deadly mid-air collision in January. "It's a safety whitewash," National Safety Transportation Board chair Jennifer Homendy told reporters. "If it sounds like I'm mad, I am mad. This is shameful.""
"After the crash, the Defense Department agreed to require military aircraft to broadcast their position using a technology known as ADS-B. But the NTSB warns the bill's language would create exemptions to the policy in effect, recreating conditions that were in place at the time of the DCA collision, which was the nation's deadliest aviation disaster in more than 20 years."
""We should be working together in partnership to prevent the next accident, not inviting history to repeat itself by recreating the same conditions that were in place on January 29th," Homendy said. Homendy laid out the NTSB's concerns in a letter to the chairman and ranking member of both the House Armed Services Committees and the Senate Committee on Armed Services. She said no legislators had approached her during the drafting of the NDAA, and she did not know who added the provision in question."
The NTSB strongly opposes a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act that would create exemptions undermining aviation safety improvements after the January mid-air collision. The collision between a military Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet near Reagan National Airport killed 67 people. The Defense Department had agreed to require military aircraft to broadcast position via ADS-B after the crash, but the bill's language could restore prior conditions. NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy raised those concerns in a letter to armed services committee leaders and said legislators did not consult the agency during drafting.
Read at www.npr.org
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