Lawmakers promise “never again” after the Potomac mid-air disaster — and a new safety bill is being fast-tracked
WASHINGTON — A bipartisan bloc of House lawmakers says it is moving “expeditiously” toward legislation intended to prevent a repeat of the January 2025 mid-air collision that killed 67 people when an American Airlines passenger jet and an Army helicopter collided near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, the deadliest U.S. aviation disaster since November 2001. The push follows a sweeping set of National Transportation Safety Board recommendations and comes as lawmakers in both chambers signal they want tangible changes to how crowded airspace is managed when military helicopter routes intersect with commercial traffic near major airports.
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the Armed Services Committee said their leaders — Republicans Sam Graves and Mike Rogers and Democrats Rick Larsen and Adam Smith — are working together on legislation that will weigh “the full and fair consideration” of all NTSB recommendations. The NTSB issued 50 recommendations last week, and the committees’ joint statement framed the upcoming bill as a direct response to those findings. Separately, the Senate Commerce Committee has scheduled a Feb. 12 hearing with NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy, with lawmakers examining what the agency described as systemic FAA failures tied to the collision and trying to build support for a broader air safety reform package that has stalled in the House.
Some of the reform ideas are already on the table. Reuters reported that the Senate unanimously passed the ROTOR Act in December, which would tighten military helicopter safety rules and require aircraft operators to equip fleets with automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) technology by the end of 2031. The bill also boosts oversight of commercial jet and helicopter traffic and flight routes near commercial airports — exactly the kind of “airspace rules” and technology requirements that tend to show up after catastrophic failures because they’re measurable, enforceable, and expensive enough that agencies often don’t move quickly without congressional pressure.
The political moment is unusual because both parties appear to see aviation safety as low-risk, high-impact legislation — and because the Potomac crash sits at the intersection of civilian aviation, military operations, and federal oversight. The NTSB’s recommendations now serve as the blueprint, but the real fight will be over deadlines, funding, and how aggressively to change routes and procedures that have existed for years. What lawmakers are promising, in plain terms, is a bill that makes it harder for crowded airspace to become a tragedy again — and the next few weeks will show whether that promise becomes rules, equipment mandates, and enforcement with teeth.
