After Crash, F.A.A. Change Requires All Aircraft at Reagan to Broadcast Positions

All aircraft flying near the Ronald Reagan national airport will now have to transmit their positions to the air traffic controllers, the administrator of the acting of the Federal Aviation Administration said on Thursday.

Politics, which entered into force on Thursday, was implemented after it was revealed that the technology in an army helicopter that collided with a passenger jet near the airport in January was turned off at the time of the deadly crash.

Known as the transverse of automatic dependent surveillance, the technology transmits the position, altitude and speed of a plane and could have allowed the air traffic controllers to better trace the helicopter movements. Military helicopters can turn off technology during the so -called continuity of government missions, which take place during national emergencies and ensure that the best government officials were found.

The political change was disclosed when the FAA and military officials were pressed by the senators to explain how the army helicopter, who was on a training mission, could have clashed with the passenger jet, which was coming to land on a heavily busy route.

“The fact is that we have to do better,” said Chris Rocheleau, the administrator of the acting faa. “We must identify the trends, we must get smarter on how we use data and when we put on corrective actions. We must implement them with diligence.”

Rocheleau said that there would be some exemptions in the new policy, although those were not discussed during the hearing. He appeared in front of the Panel of the Senate with Jennifer Homendy, president of the National Transportation Safety Board and Brig. General Matt Braman, director of the Army Aviation. For about two hours, they answered questions about the current investigations on the January accident, who killed 67 people.

It was the first investigative hearing in collision by the subcommittee, the aviation panel of the Committee for trade, science and transport of the Senate. Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican who presides over the transport committee, said that military operations and other operations continued to interfere with passenger flights to Reagan airport. He mentioned an example on March 1 when several commercial planes landing at the airport reported notes of nearby planes, in some cases combined with automated instructions to take urgent actions to avoid an accident.

The warnings have been apparently caused by the secret service and the navy “test in an improper way of counter -ride technology”, said Cruz, who caused radio interference with a life system that commercial planes use to prevent collisions in mid -air.

“I would just like to say that this is profoundly disturbing that only a month after the death of 67 people while approaching the DCA that the secret service and the Pentagon would inadvertently cause more flights to receive urgent notices of the pilot cabin that recommend evasive actions,” said Cruz, using the initials that designate the airport, which is in Virginia, through the Potomac river from a Washington.

The senators Jerry Moran, Kansas Republican who presides over the aeronautical subcommittee, and Maria Cantwell, Democratic of Washington, interrogated Mr. Rocheleau as to why the FAA had lost warning signals for the potential for the collisions between military helicopters and commercial planes at Reagan airport.

A Preliminary report by ERSB He discovered that a helicopter and a commercial plane almost collided at least once a month near Reagan from 2011 to 2024, raising concerns on how Faa had neglected such a danger in one of the busiest airports of the nation.

Mrs. Homendy and Sean Duffy, the transport secretary, criticized the FAA for not having recognized the frequency of the almost missing at the airport and having faced the problems.

In response, Mr. Rocheleau recognized that the agency had lost crucial signs.

“I will continue to review what I mentioned first compared to the hot points,” said Rocheleau, “working closely with NTSB to learn what happened here and to make sure it never happens again”.