Womack Presses NTSB Head On 15,214 'Close Proximity Events' At DCA In 3 Years Leading Up To Crash

2 days ago

During a House Appropriations Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR) spoke about the number of 'close proximity events' between helicopters and planes around DC airport.

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Transcript

00:00A lady from Connecticut. Chair Homendy, you mentioned in your testimony that it is your

00:06mission to basically advise, take data from serious incidents, and then make recommendations,

00:16though you have no authority to implement those, you have no authority to enforce such a recommendation.

00:23So, let's go back to the midair collision that happened back on January 29th. It involved

00:33a helicopter, and we have up to that point had had a lot of helicopter traffic up and

00:40down the Potomac, and particularly on what we now know as Route 4, but there had been

00:47recommendations I'm assuming made previously about the combination of helicopter traffic

00:55and passenger jet service flying into and out of Reagan National Airport. Had there

01:02been recommendations on helicopter traffic specifically with regard to Route 4, which

01:08is right across the Potomac? We had not issued any recommendations regarding

01:13Route 4, but certainly as part of this investigation, that is one of our big focus.

01:18So when you did your investigation, there were some pretty alarming conclusions made.

01:26Perhaps most alarming to me was the number of times, and I think this went back to like

01:332021, I can't remember, but four or five years, that the number of times where the separation

01:42horizontally and the separation vertically was very dangerous. And as I understand it,

01:52in vertical separation, less than 75 feet. So can you speak to the conclusions that your

01:59team has come up with in researching serious incidents prior to?

02:05Yes, and what we did is we looked at FAA surveillance data and then voluntary reporting system data.

02:14So that's reporting from pilots, reporting from air traffic control, those are voluntary

02:21reporting systems, and then there's a mandatory reporting system for occurrences in air traffic

02:27control. And what the data showed us is that there were 15,214 close proximity events from

02:352021 through 2024 at DCA between helicopters and planes.

02:42When federal agencies respond to your recommendations across the spectrum of them, not just particularly

02:49this case, what are the hesitancies involved in, because I'm assuming they don't accept

02:59all of the recommendations, they don't implement all of the recommendations, what are the various

03:06and I'll use the word excuses, but what are the various reasons why many of the things

03:11that are recommended by the NTSB never find their way into certain protocols?

03:16Sometimes they'll use cost, that they'll say the cost is not justified by the benefits.

03:25I will say one thing that we're looking at as part of this investigation is ADS-B out

03:32and ADS-B in. ADS-B out is required for commercial aircraft and has been since 2020, but ADS-B

03:40in is not required. We've been on record since 2008 that ADS-B in should be mandated, but

03:51the FAA has used cost as a reason not to mandate that. What that would have done or

03:57could have done, and we'll look at that as part of this investigation, is the CRJ, the

04:03plane, had ADS-B out. It did not have ADS-B in, though American does have some Airbus

04:09planes that do have ADS-B in that could have provided them some information about the helicopter

04:16positioning and flight path, but that information was not available to them. We'll look at how

04:23ADS-B in could have helped as well as out, including an air traffic control throughout

04:28our investigation.

04:29Of all of the data-driven conclusions that were made, including the vertical and horizontal

04:35separation, what was most alarming to you?

04:39I think what is most alarming to me, well, two things, that you had reporting over years.

04:47In fact, there was reporting going, there was data going back to 2011 that traffic collision

04:55alerts were going off monthly as a result of close proximity to helicopters, and that's

05:01from 2011 through 2024. And so for me, all this data is being collected by FAA, from

05:10operators, from others, from voluntary reporting systems, where is that data going to trend

05:15potential accidents and incidents in the future? The next accident is in the data right now,

05:22and what are we doing to figure out what that is?

05:27The other most alarming to me is how nobody figured out, based on the glide slope going

05:35into Runway 33, that if you look at the helicopter route, that there's only 75 feet of separation

05:44between a plane coming in to Runway 33 max, that's 75 feet max. That route doesn't have

05:55lateral boundaries, and in fact, in this case, the helicopter was to the right of the route.

06:03So it's a very small margin for error.

06:08Thank you. Mr. Clyburn.

Womack Presses NTSB Head On 15,214 'Close Proximity Events' At DCA In 3 Years Leading Up To Crash

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