By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON, Feb 24 (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday failed to pass key aviation legislation after the Pentagon raised last-minute objections, and despite pleas from lawmakers and relatives of those killed in the worst U.S. aviation disaster since 2001.
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. But under fast-track rules designed to expedite legislation, the bill needed a two-thirds majority to pass, and it fell one vote short.
One Democrat joined 132 Republicans in voting against ROTOR.
The act would require the military to use ADS-B on routine training flights but not on sensitive military missions. The legislation followed the January 2025 disaster, when an American Airlines regional jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter collided in the crowded airspace over the nation’s capital, killing 67 people.
SAFETY SYSTEM WOULD HAVE PREVENTED CRASH: NTSB
National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said ADS-B would have prevented the 2025 collision and noted the agency has called for it to be mandated for more than 20 years.
NTSB said ADS-B could have alerted the passenger plane pilot 59 seconds before the collision and the helicopter crew 48 seconds before.
“How many more people need to die for us to decide that action needs to be taken?” she told reporters on Tuesday. After the vote, she said it was “despicable” it failed.
In December, the Pentagon said it supported the legislation, sponsored by Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz and the panel’s top Democrat, Maria Cantwell. But in a statement released on Monday, the Pentagon said the bill could create “significant unresolved budgetary burdens and operational security risks affecting national defense activities.”
Cruz told Reuters he was disappointed by the vote but was confident ROTOR would ultimately pass and be signed into law.
House Transportation Committee Chair Sam Graves said on Tuesday that his panel would take up a rival aviation safety bill as soon as next week.
Graves’ bipartisan bill, known as the ALERT Act, is cosponsored by the committee’s top Democrat, Representative Rick Larsen, and aims to be more comprehensive in responding to the NTSB recommendations, but critics say it would not ensure the broad use of ADS-B to prevent crashes.
The families of the crash victims said in a statement they were devastated and said the bill was not defeated on the merits but by misleading technical claims rejected by the NTSB and the Pentagon’s reversal.
“The same risk that killed 67 people 13 months ago is still in the sky tonight,” they said.
Audrey Patel, whose husband died in the crash, was pregnant at the time and noted other recent near-collisions. “We know why this happened and how to prevent it,” Patel said at a Capitol Hill press conference.
House Armed Services Committee Chair Mike Rogers, a Republican, criticized the ROTOR Act, saying it would undermine national security. But he added some military aircraft should be equipped with and transmit ADS-B in congested civilian airspace. He is also a co-sponsor of the ALERT Act.
The Air Line Pilots Association said the vote showed strong majorities in Congress support ROTOR despite it failing by one vote. “Situational awareness is critical to preventing aviation accidents; it can save lives,” the union said, adding it will aim to add the ADS-B requirements to the ALERT Act.
The ROTOR Act would also have boosted oversight of commercial jet and helicopter traffic and flight routes near commercial airports.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Rod Nickel, Nick Zieminski and Jamie Freed)
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