Maria Cantwell Asks FAA Officials About 'Damning' NTSB Report On DCA Plane-Helicopter Crash

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During a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) spoke about the NTSB's report on the fatal helicopter-plane crash in DC earlier this year.

Transcript

00:00Thank you. Ranking Member Cantwell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to mention, I heard that

00:06you said that there's a great bipartisan support on working on DCA and the problems around DCA,

00:12and that is very true. And we remain committed to understanding what's transpired and

00:21and continuing to get answers. And I think Senator Moran might have mentioned that he thinks we

00:26are going to do a roundtable to get further information. But Mr. McIntosh, on this point,

00:32well, first of all, I wish Acting Administrator Richel was here. I'm not sure why he's not here.

00:38I think having somebody who's in charge of the operations and answering to that is very important.

00:45But the NTSB report, obviously, was quite damning with a lot of information about close calls beyond

00:52the accident that happened. And so it begs the question about the ATO process that's in place,

00:58the the safety risk management system that is supposed to be there. So and now post the accident,

01:05we've had this another incident. So why is your system not working? Why is the FAA's oversight of

01:13this not working? Thank you for the question, Senator Cantwell. The SMS process the ATO utilizes

01:25is is is quite robust. We have independent reviews from from different levels of the organization to

01:31ensure that we don't have any human biases. And what I mean by that is we are required to review all

01:38events, whether it at all at all of our FAA facilities. So any significant event is required

01:44to be entered into a mandatory occurrence report and then a subsequent investigation. Okay, so are you

01:48saying nobody's investigating this? Because we I have to get through about five issues here. So all I'm

01:53saying is if you had all those alarms going off, if you had all of that oversight and you had a safety

01:58risk management system, but nobody read the data and nobody said anything, we've already asked this of

02:03the FAA. So now I want an answer from the Acting Administrator. I'm pretty sure you already promised me an

02:08answer, which I still don't have, which is what is your process for then saying this is a problem

02:15and we're going to put a stop to it. I think the answer right now is oh no, I'm going to call air

02:20traffic controllers. That is not the answer. The answer is this is too big of a risk and we're not

02:25going to continue to do this and we're going to set better separations and more standards and you

02:31haven't done that. And so that's that's question number one. Okay, Newark. There's been reports in the

02:37press that maybe there was only three people in the tower. Isn't there a requirement that there

02:42should be seven people in the tower? Isn't DCA here similarly? Isn't it about seven air traffic

02:47controllers to staff a tower like either of these towers? Is that right? Are you speaking to Newark

02:53Tower or to Philadelphia Area C TRACON? Either. We have basic watch schedule guidelines. This is a number

03:01that we try to get to. Which is what? Depends on by facility and how many positions we open. Now,

03:08I believe you're well aware that we do have some critical staffing shortfalls. I can't tell you

03:13how hard I worked to get the 3,000 increase and I would have gotten more. But back to this question,

03:18what I'm pinpointing is if the New York Post is wrong, I don't know whether they are, maybe there

03:22were three people there, but if your number is seven and you don't have seven, what is the FAA

03:28doing every day to monitor that situation and say, this is a problem? This is not, I'm going to call

03:34the head of the air traffic controllers union. This is what is the FAA going to do to fix the system?

03:39You're going to hear a redound, a rejoining theme through all of my questions. This is about this

03:45agency playing the aggressive role that we need you to play. Yes, ma'am. And thank you for that

03:50question. I wish to address it. Okay. When we have a staffing shortage and we cannot open enough

03:54positions, we put in traffic management initiatives to slow the aircraft down. That's exactly what we

04:00did that night at Philadelphia Area C. We put in a ground delay program to keep traffic manageable.

04:05We do the same thing at DCA. When we have too much volume, we put in a ground delay program. We do this

04:09on a daily basis. So did you think you only had three people in that tower controlling that airspace?

04:15In that TRACON for one hour, we did go down to that number and we put in the appropriate traffic

04:20management initiative to keep things safe. Okay. Why did we go from seven, which is a requirement,

04:26down to three? And then I'm for the safety first, for sure. But then at the same time,

04:31I'm trying to understand why is it that we're now down from seven, which is basically what you think

04:36you need, down to three? Well, it comes down to a staffing shortage, ma'am. We did lose some controllers

04:42in that area due to either some sick leave that was unscheduled or some other leave that was not

04:48scheduled. When those things happen, ma'am, we have to essentially keep things safe and we'll put in

04:54the appropriate traffic management initiatives to keep the flying public safe and make sure that we

04:58put controllers in the position to be successful. Well, I definitely think that, yeah, I would not

05:04have been firing the safety oversight team that we had as part of our FAA safety bill that we implemented.

05:12These are people who help us at a very big picture level. And I certainly wouldn't have cut back on

05:18staffing in general at the FAA. I think it's a time when we need people to be doing their job. I need to

05:24turn to the ODA. So I sent you a letter. I finally got a response last night. I don't really think it's

05:32satisfactory. But what is it that this process of the FAA and the manufacturer working together,

05:43what is it is the criteria that you are going to look for in an ODA agreement related to aviation

05:52manufacturing? I thank you for the question and thank you for your patience in the response.

05:59We are looking for criteria that the ODA is performing its functions. So how is it

06:08how is it performing? Is it meeting the requirements that we would hold? ODA's are,

06:14ODA unit members are performing work that the FAA would perform. So we want to make sure that they're

06:18performing to that same high standard and we want to ensure that incidents of undue influence or undue

06:27pressure are minimized and when they do occur that they are properly researched and corrective

06:34actions are put in place. We're also looking for Boeing to to continue their implementation of the safety

06:39management system. A mandatory. Excuse me? A mandatory. It is mandatory for them but. No, no. A mandatory

06:47safety management system. Not a it's mandatory. You get one and then you decide to make it voluntary.

06:53Correct. There's a difference. They will meet the standards. I'm a little concerned your general

06:58counsel is confused by this because he was confused before and let them off the hook and now I don't

07:03want to make I want to make sure we're not confused. It is a mandatory. A part five SMS. Okay, so what is it on the

07:13employee input? What are you looking for? Because part of the issue here was intimidation by employees

07:21speaking up and the FAA not backing them up and so what are you recommending? What is it you want to

07:27see in the ODA that would say yes I understand now that the company is listening to the input from the

07:35employees and when we asked the former administrator Whitaker if in fact the FAA should have some foresight

07:42insight into that? He said yes. So we want to see a employee feedback system that the FAA has some

07:48access to. So in addition to, Administrator Whitaker did invite the Boeing employees to leverage the FAA

07:58hotline and so we did see an uptick in that. We did have employees directly communicating with the FAA.

08:03In addition, we have inspectors on the floor every day in the factories having direct interaction with the

08:09workforce and inviting the workforce to interact with them as well as what I mentioned with the undue

08:16pressure and the ODAs. We have a have assigned direct advisors so the ODA members have someone

08:24within FAA that they can reach out to directly and again we monitor any reports of undue pressure

08:28and the associated investigations.

08:30I would like it if you could address this in a written response. What is it that you think the FAA

08:39believes makes for the right ODA agreement related to the employee feedback? This is, you know, we,

08:48this committee receives lots of whistleblower testimony. This committee receives lots of inputs

08:52about how the employees were bringing up issues and the FAA wasn't supporting them. So we want a clear

08:59process with the FAA that the FAA is knowledgeable not after the fact or not hoodwinked, you know,

09:05basically when it comes to like the MCAS system. We want, there were people raising the questions

09:10about MCAS all the way along. I mean very senior people and I think it would have been an interesting

09:16point if somehow that that hadn't surfaced to the FAA at that point in time. At least an alarm bell would

09:22have gone on at the FAA. Oh, MCAS better pay attention to this. This is a bigger sea change than we think.

09:27Correct? So, so we are part of the bill itself talked about how we're going to improve communication

09:37between during the certification process, not just during the production process, and some of those

09:42provisions that we're putting in place are going to facilitate that as well. Please provide to me the

09:46written, what is it you're going to expect in a process for certifying a new ODA? What would, what is it you're looking for

09:53from, to make sure that employee input when, you know, they're, uh, identifying problems that they're

10:00concerned about, how the FAA knows about that and basically gets it on your radar screen that this

10:06is something the engineering staff believes you should pay attention to. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Sorry for going over.

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