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The House on Tuesday approved the Alert Act, a bill aimed at strengthening aviation safety requirements after a deadly midair collision near Washington that killed 67 people. The legislation now moves to the Senate, where key lawmakers and families of victims said it still does not fully close the gaps identified after the January 29, 2025 crash.
The bill, which passed on a House vote, received strong support despite criticism about the scope and timing of the reforms. The House measure backed by industry groups was advanced without amendments under rules for a full-floor vote after two key House committees unanimously advanced it in March, according to the AP report.
The Alert Act has the backing of Republican Rep. Sam Graves of Missouri and Democratic Rep. Rick Larsen of Washington, and it passed 396-10. A separate Senate-developed proposal, the ROTOR Act, came up one vote short in the House.
National Transportation Safety Board officials have tied the crash to failures involving helicopter traffic and cockpit awareness. The AP report said the NTSB recently stated that, as amended, the legislation now addresses the board’s recommendation to require all aircraft flying around busy airports to have key locator systems that help pilots understand more precisely where other aircraft are.
NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy has said that such a system would have prevented the collision between an American Airlines jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter. The AP report described the NTSB as recommending the technology systems since 2008 and said Homendy previously criticized the original version of the bill as “watered down.”
The House bill is designed around technology already used for broadcasting aircraft positions, extending it to help pilots receive location data from other aircraft. The AP report said the Alert Act would require planes to have Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast In systems that can receive data about other aircraft’s locations, complementing ADS-B Out systems that most planes already broadcast.
The measure would also require the next generation of collision avoidance systems to be installed alongside ADS-B In systems, so pilots can receive alerts about nearby traffic rather than relying only on what they see on displays. The Air Line Pilots Association expressed concerns that the proposal could delay installation of the required locator systems because the new collision avoidance system has not yet been fully certified.
Families of the victims pressed lawmakers on how quickly reforms would take effect and on whether military flights could continue operating without locator systems turned on during routine training. The AP report said a main families group issued a statement saying, “January 29, 2025 made clear what is at stake. The 67 lives lost that day should be honored with an improved system that prevents this from happening again,” and added that “the flying public should not have to wait longer than necessary for those protections to be in place.”
Two prominent senators also publicly said the House bill still needed improvement. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, posted on X that the Alert Act “would not deliver the safety measures necessary to prevent another midair collision,” while Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, a Democrat, also said the bill needed stronger changes.
Democratic Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, whose Virginia district lost constituents in the crash, said the priority in the Senate should be to address all 50 recommendations the NTSB made in its final report. The AP report said Subramanyam described the crash as the result of a combination of systemic problems rather than a single issue.
The AP account described the crash investigation as pointing to factors including helicopter route design for the Reagan National Airport approach path, as well as how air traffic controllers relied too much on pilots to see and avoid other aircraft. It also said the victims included 28 members of the figure skating community aboard the American Airlines jet, which was flying from Wichita, Kansas, while the helicopter was on a training flight.
The report said the NTSB found that the poor design of the helicopter route and a lack of adequate separation between helicopters and planes landing on a secondary runway were key factors. It also quoted Homendy as saying that if both the plane and the Black Hawk had been equipped with ADS-B In and the systems had been turned on, the collision would have been prevented.
Tim and Sheri Lilley, whose son was the copilot of the airliner, said any legislation must reflect modern operating risks and provide pilots with earlier information to identify developing situations. The families group and the AP report said they want stronger oversight of any exemptions that allow military flights to fly without locator systems turned on to conceal their locations, even on training flights.