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A year after deadly midair collision near Washington, families push for safety changes January 30, 20265:00 AM ET
Rachel Feres (left) and other family members speak at a memorial event at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. for the 67 people who were killed in the midair collision of a U.S. Army helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet a year ago. Luke Johnson/Getty Images hide caption
toggle caption Luke Johnson/Getty Images
WASHINGTON — The smiling faces of some of the 67 people killed in the midair collision a year ago danced across the screen in a video montage at an emotional memorial event this week.
At the same time, an undercurrent of resilience and determination ran through the proceedings.
“While we were powerless in that moment to help our loved ones, we were not powerless to help each other,” said Doug Lane, whose wife Christine and teenage son Spencer were killed on American Airlines flight 5342 from Wichita, Kan. to Washington. “So that’s what we did. And we’ve been doing that ever since.”
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The collision of a passenger jet and Army helicopter was the nation’s deadliest aviation disaster in decades. A year later, Lane and other family members of the victims have channeled grief into advocacy. They’re still pushing for action on aviation safety, including crash-avoidance technology — and digging in for a long fight.
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“You made a choice to pay it forward,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy at the memorial event. “To pay it forward in a way that some other family wouldn’t have to go through what your family went through. And you channeled it into positive energy to make a difference.”
The Trump administration has made temporary restrictions on helicopter traffic around Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport airspace permanent. Families of the victims say they’re grateful for that, but they’re pushing for more.
Many of these families attended a meeting where the National Transportation Safety Board discussed the findings of its yearlong investigation into the collision. The NTSB put the blame on systemic failures at the Federal Aviation Administration and in the U.S. Army, and issued dozens of recommendations intended to prevent future disasters.
Still, it will take more hard work to turn those recommendations into reality, NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy said Wednesday.
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“Enduring change can take time. Making the systemwide changes we need doesn’t come easy. We may have a very long, uphill battle before us. And yet I’m hopeful,” Homendy said at the memorial event. “Because as I look around, I see who’s in the fight.”
The chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, Jennifer Homendy, speaks at a memorial event in Washington, D.C. this week. Luke Johnson/Getty Images hide caption
toggle caption Luke Johnson/Getty Images
The NTSB is calling for wider adoption of a tracking technology called ADS-B. Commercial jets already use it to send their position out. Safety advocates want to close loopholes for military aircraft, and expand the use of this technology so that planes can receive signals, too.
That could have given the pilots on Flight 5342 more warning, and more time to avoid the collision, according to the NTSB. This is not the first time the NTSB has made this recommendation. In fact, it’s recommended expanding the use of ADS-B in, as it’s known, more than a dozen times since 2008.
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“That was the year my son Spencer was born,” said Doug Lane, who lost his wife and son in the collision, in an interview this week. “So he was 16 years old when he died.”
Lane and other family members have been very involved in crafting a bipartisan bill called the ROTOR Act, which includes many of the NTSB’s recommendations.
The bill, sponsored by Senators Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., passed the Senate unanimously last month. But it’s stalled in the House of Representatives, partly because of opposition from powerful committee chairman Sam Graves, R-Mo.
In a statement to NPR, Graves said that “Congress needs to get this right,” adding that lawmakers should wait for a final report issued by federal safety investigators in a few weeks before moving forward. In an interview with Politico, Graves went further, calling the ROTOR Act proposal “emotional legislation” and raised concerns about its cost.
Graves and other committee leaders said this week they would review the NTSB’s findings as they determine their next steps.
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But family members of the crash victims say there’s no reason to wait.
“We do not need more studies. We do not need more reviews. This is so obvious and I hope that our lawmakers meet the moment,” said Rachel Feres, whose cousin Peter Livingston was killed in the collision along with his wife and two daughters.
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Map: See the aircraft’s paths before they collided near Washington, D.C.
“Early on, people told us, you’re going to have to show up for a long time. You’re going to have to be here for years,” Feres said in an NPR interview this week. “And I was really angry when I heard that.”
Since then, Feres has come to understand the old saying that ‘aviation regulation is written in blood.’ She’s learned from family members who’ve worked for change after other plane crashes, Feres said — sometimes in the background, often for years.
“So that is a torch that we now pick up,” she said. “We are not going to rest until those recommendations are made law.”
- aviation safety
- plane collisions
- NTSB