House rejects bill requiring aircraft locator systems to prevent midair collisions like last year's

The families of the victims who died when an American Airlines jet collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter strongly supported the measure, and a number of them watched the vote from the House gallery. But the Airlines for American trade group, the military and the major general aviation groups that represent business jets and small plane owners backed a competing and more comprehensive House bill that was just introduced last week.

Tim Lilley, whose son Sam was the first officer on the airliner, said he’s really disappointed, but he and the other families will continue to press for meaningful reforms. And he hopes that will happen before the next tragedy.

“We’re going to end up back here having the same conversation because of another midair (collision) is what’s going to happen. Hopefully — fingers crossed — that doesn’t,” Lilley said.

Under the special process that was used to fast-track the bill, the ROTOR Act needed to receive more than two-thirds support to pass the House. It received 264 votes, but 133 other representatives voted against it. ROTOR stands for “Rotorcraft Operations Transparency and Oversight Reform.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson told The Associated Press that the Senate and the House will work together to get an aviation safety bill done. “We're committed to it,” he said.

And House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee Chairman Sam Graves said the House bill could be marked up in committee as soon as next week. That bill is designed to address all 50 of the recommendations the NTSB made, not just the locator technology, but NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy has said the House bill falls short of accomplishing that.

But Lilley said the bill Graves helped write needs to be strengthened.

“They’ve had 18 years to get it right. He’s talking about getting it right and he’s not even close on the collision avoidance piece,” he said.

The cost of the ADS-B In mandate has been a concern. It’s not clear exactly how much it would cost partly because the systems haven’t yet been designed for every aircraft, but Homendy testified in Congress that American Airlines was able to equip more than 300 of its Airbus a321s for $50,000 apiece, and general aviation pilots have the option of using a portable receiver that costs about $400 and works with an iPad.

One of the key researchers who helped develop these locator systems, Fabrice Kunzi, said a plane’s dashboard shouldn’t have to be overhauled to add a new display because the system is designed to give pilots an audible warning about nearby traffic with details of their locations if there is a risk of a collision.

House and Senate bills took a different approach

The key difference between the bills is that the House version would not require both kinds of the proven Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast systems to be installed. Instead, the House bill would require the Federal Aviation Administration to investigate what technology might be best as part of a lengthy rulemaking process before requiring a solution. The House bill also covers many more aspects of the systemic failures the NTSB identified as causing the crash on the evening of Jan. 29, 2025.

The bipartisan group of Senate leaders behind the ROTOR Act — led by Republican Ted Cruz and Democrat Maria Cantwell — had argued their bill would be a good first step before drafting additional legislation.

Cruz pledged to keep working to pass his bill, which earned bipartisan support Tuesday, because it would require all aircraft to play by the same set of rules. “We will succeed, and ROTOR Act will become the law of the land," he said. "The families and the flying public deserve nothing less.”

The main Families of Flight 5342 group had said that while the House bill includes a number of good reforms that should be considered, they can’t support it as written because it doesn’t clearly require ADS-B In equipment. Everyone aboard the helicopter and the American Airlines jet flying from Wichita, Kansas, including the parents of Olympic figure skater Maxim Naumov and 26 other members of the figure skating community, died when the aircraft collided and plummeted into the icy Potomac River.

Sara Nelson, who is the president of the Association of Flight Attendants, said her union will keep pushing for changes because bill that failed “was the clearest and most direct way to avoid midair collisions.”

Doug Lane said that as he learned more about the crash that killed his wife and 16-year-old figure-skating son, he couldn’t understand why airplanes aren’t already equipped with technology that was first recommended before his son was born, and he's angry the bill failed Tuesday. He said the House bill is a poor substitute because too many of its provisions just call for a study or rulemaking without requiring actual change and there are loopholes.

Lane said the House bill is “a clear effort to just punt ADS-B In into a place where it can just go and die. It was not a good-faith effort to come up with a better way to do collision avoidance technology.”

Improving the collision warning system

Any plane flying around a major airport is already required to have an ADS-B Out system that continually broadcasts an aircraft’s location and speed installed. ADS-B In systems that can receive those signals and be used to create a display showing pilots where all air traffic is located around them are not standard on airliners, though many general aviation pilots already use a portable receiver to display that information on an iPad.

The NTSB investigation showed that system would have provided significantly more warning to the pilots involved in the crash and would have allowed them to avoid the collision. A plane equipped with ADS-B In can give the pilot a detailed description of where other aircraft are, whereas the current technology can only warn that traffic is in the area.

Rep. Nick Langworthy, R-N.Y., who is chairman of an aviation safety caucus, voted for the bill. He said he was puzzled by the Pentagon’s last-minute shift on the bill. He also noted there were many absences among House members due to weather, which also affected the outcome.

He said he is sure that the families of the crash victims are disappointed after the vote.

“But I don’t think they should be completely dejected. I do think there are avenues to bring it back,” Langworthy said. “There’s will to solve this problem.”

Associated Press writer Kevin Freking contributed to this report from Washington.