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.
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