House rejects bill requiring aircraft locator systems to prevent midair
collisions like last year's
[February 25, 2026]
By JOSH FUNK
The House failed to approve a bill Tuesday that was crafted after last
year’s tragic midair collision near Washington, D.C., to require all
aircraft flying around busy airports to have key locator systems to
prevent such crashes. The collision of an airliner and an Army
helicopter killed 67 people in January 2025.
The National Transportation Safety Board has been recommending such
Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast systems to be installed since
2008. The bill that already passed the Senate would have required
aircraft to be equipped with a system that can receive data about the
locations of other aircraft. The complementary ADS-B Out system that
broadcasts an aircraft’s location is already required.
The families of the victims who died when an American Airlines jet
collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter strongly supported the
measure, and a number of them watched the vote from the House gallery.
But the Airlines for American trade group, the military and the major
general aviation groups that represent business jets and small plane
owners backed a competing and more comprehensive House bill that was
just introduced last week.
Tim Lilley, whose son Sam was the first officer on the airliner, said
he’s really disappointed, but he and the other families will continue to
press for meaningful reforms. And he hopes that will happen before the
next tragedy.
“We’re going to end up back here having the same conversation because of
another midair (collision) is what’s going to happen. Hopefully —
fingers crossed — that doesn’t,” Lilley said.
Under the special process that was used to fast-track the bill, the
ROTOR Act needed to receive more than two-thirds support to pass the
House. It received 264 votes, but 133 other representatives voted
against it. ROTOR stands for “Rotorcraft Operations Transparency and
Oversight Reform.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson told The Associated Press that the Senate and
the House will work together to get an aviation safety bill done. “We're
committed to it,” he said.
And House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee Chairman Sam Graves
said the House bill could be marked up in committee as soon as next
week. That bill is designed to address all 50 of the recommendations the
NTSB made, not just the locator technology, but NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer
Homendy has said the House bill falls short of accomplishing that.
But Lilley said the bill Graves helped write needs to be strengthened.
“They’ve had 18 years to get it right. He’s talking about getting it
right and he’s not even close on the collision avoidance piece,” he
said.
The cost of the ADS-B In mandate has been a concern. It’s not clear
exactly how much it would cost partly because the systems haven’t yet
been designed and certified for every aircraft, but Homendy testified in
Congress that American Airlines was able to equip more than 300 of its
Airbus a321s for $50,000 apiece, and general aviation pilots have the
option of using a portable receiver that costs about $400 and works with
an iPad.
One of the key researchers who helped develop these locator systems,
Fabrice Kunzi, said a plane’s dashboard shouldn’t have to be overhauled
to add a new display because the system is designed to give pilots an
audible warning about nearby traffic with details of their locations if
there is a risk of a collision.
House and Senate bills took a different approach
The key difference between the bills is that the House version would not
require both kinds of the proven Automatic Dependent
Surveillance-Broadcast systems to be installed. Instead, the House bill
would require the Federal Aviation Administration to investigate what
technology might be best as part of a lengthy rulemaking process before
requiring a solution. The House bill also covers many more aspects of
the systemic failures the NTSB identified as causing the crash on the
evening of Jan. 29, 2025.
The bipartisan group of Senate leaders behind the ROTOR Act — led by
Republican Ted Cruz and Democrat Maria Cantwell — had argued their bill
would be a good first step before drafting additional legislation.
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Family members of the people who were killed in the midair collision
near Washington Reagan National Airport listen during a news
conference as Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., speaks, not shown, on Capitol
Hill, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)
Cruz pledged to keep working to pass his bill, which earned
bipartisan support Tuesday, because it would require all aircraft to
play by the same set of rules. “We will succeed, and ROTOR Act will
become the law of the land," he said. "The families and the flying
public deserve nothing less.”
The main Families of Flight 5342 group had said that while the House
bill includes a number of good reforms that should be considered,
they can’t support it as written because it doesn’t clearly require
ADS-B In equipment. Everyone aboard the helicopter and the American
Airlines jet flying from Wichita, Kansas, including the parents of
Olympic figure skater Maxim Naumov and 26 other members of the
figure skating community, died when the aircraft collided and
plummeted into the icy Potomac River.
Sara Nelson, who is the president of the Association of Flight
Attendants, said her union will keep pushing for changes because
bill that failed “was the clearest and most direct way to avoid
midair collisions.”
Doug Lane said that as he learned more about the crash that killed
his wife and 16-year-old figure-skating son, he couldn’t understand
why airplanes aren’t already equipped with technology that was first
recommended before his son was born, and he's angry the bill failed
Tuesday. He said the House bill is a poor substitute because too
many of its provisions just call for a study or rulemaking without
requiring actual change and there are loopholes.
Lane said the House bill is “a clear effort to just punt ADS-B In
into a place where it can just go and die. It was not a good-faith
effort to come up with a better way to do collision avoidance
technology.”
Improving the collision warning system
Any plane flying around a major airport is already required to have
an ADS-B Out system that continually broadcasts an aircraft’s
location and speed installed. ADS-B In systems that can receive
those signals and be used to create a display showing pilots where
all air traffic is located around them are not standard on
airliners, though many general aviation pilots already use a
portable receiver to display that information on an iPad.
The NTSB investigation showed that system would have provided
significantly more warning to the pilots involved in the crash and
would have allowed them to avoid the collision. A plane equipped
with ADS-B In can give the pilot a detailed description of where
other aircraft are, whereas the current technology can only warn
that traffic is in the area.
Cantwell, the Washington Democrat, said most House Republicans
"voted to protect loopholes that helped cause the DCA (Reagan
Airport) midair collision rather than acting with urgency to prevent
crashes like this from happening again. The families deserve
better.”
Rep. Nick Langworthy, R-N.Y., who is chairman of an aviation safety
caucus, voted for the bill. He said he was puzzled by the Pentagon’s
last-minute shift on the bill. He also noted there were many
absences among House members due to weather, which also affected the
outcome.
He said he is sure that the families of the crash victims are
disappointed after the vote.
“But I don’t think they should be completely dejected. I do think
there are avenues to bring it back,” Langworthy said. “There’s will
to solve this problem.”
____
Associated Press writer Kevin Freking contributed to this report
from Washington.
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