ICYMI: Families of Flight 5342 Urge Swift House Passage of ROTOR Act

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Amy Hunter, a member of Families of Flight 5342, whose loved ones were killed in last year's fatal midair collision near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, published an op-ed in The Hill today urging swift House passage of the Rotorcraft Operations Transparency and Oversight Reform (ROTOR) Act.

Hunter wrote that the bipartisan ROTOR Act implements key NTSB recommendations and closes safety gaps that will save lives. The ROTOR Act requires all aircraft in congested airspace to send and receive location signals known as ADS-B to each other. The NTSB has recommended broader ADS-B usage for more than two decades.

The Senate unanimously passed the ROTOR Act in December.

Read the full text of the op-ed HERE or below:

"It has been more than a year since the midair collision over the Potomac, involving Flight 5342 and an Army Black Hawk helicopter. Sixty-seven lives were lost in a flash. For our families, time has not dulled the grief; it has sharpened the urgency.

"Over the last year, we have done what families should never have to do: learn aviation safety rules, track congressional calendars and press lawmakers to act so no one else is forced into the same devastation. This work should never fall on people who have just buried their loved ones.

"One clear, bipartisan step is ready now. It is called the ROTOR Act.

"The ROTOR Act is not symbolic legislation. It is not another study or delay. It directly addresses safety failures that contributed to our accident - failures the National Transportation Safety Board has already identified through its investigative process and formal, board-adopted safety recommendations. These are systemic failures safety experts have warned about for years, in some cases since 2008, long before many Americans reading this were even old enough to fly alone.

"Investigators found that widely available technology could have warned one aircraft nearly a full minute before impact and the other nearly 50 seconds before the collision, time enough to avoid disaster, yet that technology was not required in the most congested airspace in the country.

"The Senate understood this urgency and acted accordingly. The ROTOR Act passed unanimously. That level of agreement in today's political climate is rare, and it matters. When 100 senators agree on a safety fix, the debate over whether the problem is real is over; what remains is the question of why action is still being delayed.

"We have had constant, constructive engagement from senators on both sides of the aisle, and we are grateful for that leadership. We look forward to similar conversations in the House of Representatives. But we are concerned by the suggestion that Congress must wait for a "perfect" package of reforms before acting. In complex safety systems, delay does not preserve the status quo, it preserves known risks.

"The ROTOR Act does not claim to solve every problem in the national airspace system. Neither do we. We fully expect Congress to swiftly codify all of the NTSB's final recommendations, not just those addressed by this bill. We are committed to working with the House on additional legislation to close the remaining safety gaps.

"Nearly every week, Americans read about dangerously congested airspace, frequent near-misses and widespread vulnerabilities at airports across the country. Recent reporting on dangerously congested airspace around Burbank, California, is one example. When our families read these stories, we do not read them as abstractions. We read them as warnings.

"In shared airspace, safety is collective. One unequipped aircraft endangers everyone else.

"We ask the question no family should ever have to ask: When is the next one going to happen? How many more families will be shattered while Congress waits for a perfect solution?

"We have been told there may be only "one bite at the apple." We do not accept that. Aviation safety is not a single-bill problem. At a minimum, it requires sustained legislative attention, not an all-or-nothing gamble that leaves preventable hazards unaddressed in the meantime.

"The ROTOR Act is ready to go now. It addresses real, documented safety gaps, reflects longstanding expert recommendations and has bipartisan support. It relies on technology already widely used by pilots today, often through portable equipment costing a few hundred dollars, and it can be implemented without grounding aviation or delaying further reforms.

"Passing the ROTOR Act does not end the work; it starts it.

"What we will not accept is the idea that our loved ones' legacy, and the safety of the flying public, should be held hostage to legislative delay. The failures that led to our loss were not isolated. They were system-wide, spanning regulators, operators and civilian-military coordination. Those failures demand action.

"Our families have waited more than a year. The public has waited far longer.

"Congress should act now. Pass the ROTOR Act and then continue the urgent work of closing the remaining safety gaps - before another family is forced to learn, as we did, that waiting carries consequences measured in lives."

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