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US House fails to pass Aviation Safety Bill after Pentagon withdraws support

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The House voted ?264-133 ?in favor of the ROTOR Act, passed unanimously by the U.S. Senate in December, which would require aircraft operators to equip their fleets with a safety system known as the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast system, or ADS-B, by the end of 2031. The bill failed to receive the two-thirds vote needed to pass under fast-track legislation designed to speed up the process.

A Democrat joined 132 Republicans to vote against ROTOR.

The act would mandate that the military use ADS-B for routine training flights, but not on?sensitive military missions. This legislation was a response to the disaster of January 2025, in which an American Airlines regional plane and an Army Black Hawk helicopter collided over the nation's capital. 67 people were killed.

NTSB: SAFETY SYSTEM WOULD PREVENT CRASH

Jennifer Homendy, Chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, said that ADS-B could have prevented the collision in 2025 and stated that the agency had?called for its mandate to be mandatory for more than twenty years.

NTSB stated that ADS-B would have alerted both the passenger plane pilot and helicopter crew 48 seconds prior to the collision.

How many more people must die before we decide to take action? She told reporters Tuesday. She said that it was "despicable", after the vote.

In December, Pentagon officials said that they supported the bill, which was sponsored by Ted Cruz, Chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, and Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on the panel. In a Monday statement, however, the Pentagon warned that the bill would create "significant budgetary burdens as well as operational security risks which could affect national defense activities."

Cruz said he was disappointed with the vote, but was confident that ROTOR would eventually pass and become law.

Sam Graves, the chair of the House Transportation Committee, said Tuesday that his committee would consider a competing aviation safety bill by next week.

Graves’ bipartisan bill is known as the?ALERT Act and cosponsored by Representative Rick Larsen. It aims to provide a more comprehensive response to NTSB recommendations. However, critics claim it will not guarantee the widespread use of ADS-B in order to prevent accidents.

In a statement, the families of the crash victims expressed their sadness and claimed that the bill had not been defeated due to its merits but because the NTSB rejected misleading claims and the Pentagon reversed the decision.

The same risk that killed more than 67 people in just 13 months is still present tonight, they said.

Audrey Patel was pregnant when her husband died and noted other recent near collisions. Patel told a Capitol Hill Press Conference that "we know why this happened, and how to avoid it."

Mike Rogers of the House Armed Services Committee, a Republican from Washington, DC, criticised the ROTOR Act and said it would compromise national security. He added that some military aircraft in congested civilian airspace should be equipped with ADS-B and transmit it. He is also co-sponsoring the ALERT Act.

Air Line Pilots Association: The vote shows that ROTOR is supported by a strong majority in Congress, despite its failure to pass by one vote. The union stated that "situational awareness" is crucial to prevent aviation accidents and can even save lives.

The ROTOR act would have also increased oversight of commercial helicopter and jet traffic, and flight routes close to commercial airports. (Reporting and editing by Rod Nickel; Nick Zieminski, Jamie Freed and Rod Nickel)

(source: Reuters)