WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Sen. Ted Cruz threatened Monday to withhold funding to keep the federal government open beyond the end of January if reforms are not passed to tighten military flight rules and help prevent fatal accidents, such as the collision between a passenger plane and an Army helicopter over Washington, D.C., that killed 67 people.
Cruz and Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell held a news conference with some of the victims’ families on Monday to urge Congress to remove provisions from a massive defense bill that would allow military aircraft to obtain exemptions and resume operations without broadcasting their exact locations, as they did before the Jan. 29 crash.
It’s unclear whether Republican leadership will allow changes to the defense bill, which would send the bill back to the House and potentially delay pay increases for soldiers and other key provisions. But Cruz said if the defense bill passes as it stands now, he will hold off on government funding until a bill he introduced last summer to address the problem is passed.
Cruz said the defense bill provision “was dropped at the last minute,” noting that it would undo actions taken by President Donald Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to make the airspace around Washington, D.C., safer.
“Special exceptions are what led to the crash on January 29 that killed 67 people,” Cruz said.
Before the crash, military helicopters frequently flew through congested airspace around the nation’s capital without using a critical system called ADS-B to broadcast their positions. The Federal Aviation Administration began requiring this on all aircraft in March.
After new helicopter safety provisions in the defense bill came to light last week, National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy, senators, airlines and major transportation unions all sharply criticized them.
Cruz and Cantwell said they only became aware the bill would contain such language after congressional leaders finalized the massive military bill last week. When they realized it included exemptions, they immediately began to object strongly.
Families of crash victims say the bill would weaken safeguards and set back aviation safety.
“Our families know the consequences of systemic failure, and we cannot accept policy changes that make our skies less safe,” the families said in a statement.
The National Transportation Safety Board won’t release a final report on the cause of the crash until sometime next year, but investigators have raised some key concerns about 85 near misses around Ronald Reagan National Airport in the years before the crash and the flight path that allowed Black Hawk helicopters to get dangerously close to planes landing on the airport’s secondary runway.
The bill introduced by Cruz and Cantwell to require all aircraft to broadcast their locations has broad support from the White House, the FAA, the National Transportation Safety Board and the families of the victims.
