House passes aviation safety bill in response to deadly midair collision near D.C.
Posted by Shoddy_Act7059@reddit | aviation | View on Reddit | 63 comments
From the article:
"The House on Tuesday passed its version of an aviation safety bill, months after it rejected separate legislation that cleared the Senate with unanimous support and angered families of the victims of a deadly midair crash near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
In a 396 to 10 vote, the House approved the ALERT Act, which came in response to the January 2025 collision between an American Airlines passenger jet and an Army Black Hawk that killed all 67 people aboard both aircraft.
The ALERT Act would require all aircraft, including military planes, that fly near busy airports to install safety instruments that can receive data about the locations of other aircraft in the vicinity. Most planes already have technology that broadcasts their locations, called ADS-B Out, but are not equipped with collision-avoidance technology referred to as ADS-B In."
VFR_Direct@reddit
“The bipartisan bill would also require military aircraft to install collision-prevention technologies by 2031, with exceptions for fighters, bombers, drones and other special mission aircraft.”
Ready for every military aircraft to be classified as a “special mission aircraft”
greatlakesailors@reddit
All of that military stuff should have ADS-B and should use it all the time in peacetime. They only ever need to turn it off when they're on an actual mission in a threat zone.
InsertCutesyPunHere@reddit
IMO flying in friendly airspace towards combat would still be okay, but other than that there's very little if any reason it should be off. 99.9% of the time otherwise, keeping the cargo secret is good enough.
southflhitnrun@reddit
This bill was created so military suppliers can make even more tax payer money. That's why it passed.
Of course, the military could order them, pay for them and never install them.
padawanninja@reddit
Nope. Defense contractors aren't going to care about this because it's not going to get installed on any military aircraft. They're just going to classify all non -fighters and bombers as "special mission aircraft." As always, the military is just going to ignore regulations they don't like.
Optimuspeterson@reddit
Most mil aircraft have this capability, but FAA already (especially DC) is fine with keeping it off for those that are operational …**hint, most flying are fulfilling some type of mission requirement even if it’s a training flight.
zeekayz@reddit
So wouldn't apply to heli that caused collision. It was special mission aircraft for Presidential evacuation.
quesoandcats@reddit
Well, cabinet-level and senior military leadership evacuation! POTUS rides with HMX-1
SubarcticFarmer@reddit
The helicopter involved was a special mission aircraft itself...
NathanArizona@reddit
Collision technologies, if only we had the technology. I'm sure Elon soon to get $5bil presidential-order contract to "invent" it
Shoddy_Act7059@reddit (OP)
If that seriously happens...
Whiteyak5@reddit
Well get ready for it lol.
theindomitablefred@reddit
Why did it take over a year to do this
BugAlternative6827@reddit
Someone's brother had to start a company for these things
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Drachen1065@reddit
They been on vacation a lot over the last year or so....
Spiritual-Physics700@reddit
Imagine, averaging around 146-165 legislative days in Washington per year. And getting paid 6 figure salary and free health insurance for life?
jhwkr542@reddit
And all the hot stock tips
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Milton__Obote@reddit
And free insider trading tips to actually get rich
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fly_awayyy@reddit
Meh they making the most of their money on trade positions. The salary is hardly anything to brag about
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Express-Citron-6387@reddit
yup.
InTheDeepestOcean@reddit
They don’t get free health insurance while in office or for life. Plenty else to be upset about anyway.
theindomitablefred@reddit
Yeah, sounds very cushy
grptrt@reddit
Have you seen who’s running things lately?
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T33-L@reddit
Ah yeah, that’s why things take too long to pass through the legislative branches 🙄
LetsGoHawks@reddit
They were worried about the feelings of the shareholders.
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LetsGoHawks@reddit
Half the comments in this thread are political, and only mine gets locked/removed?
ThrowAwaAlpaca@reddit
Had to carve out enough exceptions to make it completely toothless
-Badger3-@reddit
The senate passed a similar bill in December and it failed in the house because the Pentagon pulled their support for it.
JustAnotherDude1990@reddit
The deadliest thing in US skies in the past year and a half has been a US army Blackhawk running into a CRJ in DC killing 67 people after many people reported near misses and close calls at DCA. And that’s a factual statement.
jmlinden7@reddit
They passed a bill in response to something that happened 15 months ago?
JustAnotherDude1990@reddit
Unfortunately the US military is the most dangerous thing in the American skies for everyone else.
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njsullyalex@reddit
Holy shit our politicians all agreed for once and actually passed a bill that will help people and make air travel safer???
ThrowAwaAlpaca@reddit
Haha nah. Military aircraft are still exempt
njsullyalex@reddit
😭
storyinmemo@reddit
ADSB-in is so simple. There have been projects for at least 10 years where you can take a Raspberry Pi strap it to a battery, plug an antenna into the USB port and get all the info about traffic that you need. You could literally Velcro this to a cockpit and be able to put it on any display that has an IP network connection.
Taco5106@reddit
It’s not about complexity, it’s about the military wanting to maintain “operational security” about their sorties.
This puts the burden of safety on the organization in busy airspace - which they’ve shown they can’t accommodate to the satisfaction of the FAA/public.
If they wanted special exceptions, they should have taken special precautions.
ThrowAwaAlpaca@reddit
What does adsb-in have to do with operational security?
storyinmemo@reddit
It's a bill for ADSB-in, not out. Disabling that goes beyond the regular concept of radio silence into "absolutely no superheterodyne oscillators" land. It should always be on.
Pretty_Marsh@reddit
This means that every time I go up for pattern work at a Class C, or inside the veil near a B, I have to have a portable ADS-B unit and device running an app. Even if it’s daylight and I’ve got ATC. Wouldn’t you rather a) I be looking outside and b) I not cover up something with my iPad mount? I use my iPad just about everywhere except pattern work because I don’t want the distraction.
GetSlunked@reddit
2026 and we’re still pretending looking outside in the daytime is a better way to see other planes instead of everyone just having ADSB In and Out. Sorry it would be burdensome for you, but it would make everyone safer.
Pretty_Marsh@reddit
I'm specifically talking about in the pattern at a towered field, where I already have two layers of protection - ATC and eyeballs. Anywhere else I'm usually using it. Maybe I'd also feel differently at an airport with frequent straight-ins or parallel runways.
storyinmemo@reddit
Both my iPad and my Garmin GPS say "traffic," I don't have to look at them while I'm in the pattern.
brilliantNumberOne@reddit
Yeah, but ADS-B out is both the important part and the difficult part.
ThisIsMyOtherBurner@reddit
i thought the white house said this was dei's fault?
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ILikeFlyingMachines@reddit
Well paying people would be a good start.
FaydedMemories@reddit
Ah this is the bill I saw a discussion about last week. From memory there was a provision that prohibited the commercial use of ADSB data for charging landing fees and similar (how I saw it framed was over concerns about towns/etc trying to charge private pilots for flying overhead). Did that provision stay in the passed version?
Ezekiel24r@reddit
I believe this is the bill text they just passed, and that language is still in there.
FaydedMemories@reddit
Ah nice, that seems like good news.
Monkeyfeng@reddit
Which 10 votes against it?
-Badger3-@reddit
We don’t know yet, but it’s worth mentioning the Nay probably favored the failed ROTOR Act and don’t think the ALERT Act goes far enough.
JeffreyDollarz@reddit
One time, when skydiving in the USA, I opened above a coastguard helicopter.
Fuck you to the pieces of shit that weren't communicating to the local airports.
russellvt@reddit
What good is having the equipment of they didn't bother to turn it on, anyway???
Either_Lawfulness466@reddit
Great
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