US Senator Ted Cruz has torn into the US Army, suggesting the service is hiding policies related to the use of ADS-B on its helicopters and warning that another mid-air collision caused by one of its rotorcraft could amount to “murder”.
Cruz and Maria Cantwell – both top lawmakers on the US Senate Transportation Committee – had on 27 March asked the Department of Defense (DoD) to produce a 9 August 2024 memo related to the Army’s use of ADS-B Out, a system used to track aircraft.
The DoD has not provided that document, the lawmakers say. They are seeking it as part of an inquiry into the deadly 29 January midair collision involving one of the army’s Sikorksy UH-60L Black Hawks and a regional jet near Ronald Reagan Washington National airport.
Cruz had previously criticised the army for obstructing the committee’s probe but went further during a 2 April Senate hearing: “It begs the question, what doesn’t the Army want Congress or the American people to know about why it was flying partially blind to the other aircraft and to the air traffic controllers near [Washington National],” he said.
“The army does not have at its option ignoring the United States Senate.”
Another close call occurred near Washington National on 28 March, when a US Air Force (USAF) Northrop T-38 trainer came within 0.5nm (0.9km) laterally and 300ft (91m) vertically of a departing Delta Air Lines jet, Cruz notes.
“If there is another accident – if another Black Hawk helicopter strikes another passenger jet and murders 67 people – because the Army requested to change its policy of turning off ADS-B Out, and… the Army chose to protect its bureaucratic ass, those deaths will be on the Army’s hands,” Cruz says.
The Federal Aviation Administration in 2010 mandated that all aircraft use ADS-B Out, which transmits position information to other aircraft and to air traffic controllers.
But at the request of the DoD and many other government agencies, the FAA in 2019 exempted government aircraft from the requirement when flying “sensitive” missions. The FAA deferred “to each agency regarding whether a mission falls under” the exemption.
In a June 2023 letter to a US lawmaker, USAF Major General Michael Downs said the Army Aviation Brigade at Fort Belvoir and the Marine Helicopter Squadron One in Virginia operated “100% of their missions with the ADS-B off”.
The 29 January incident saw the US Army Black Hawk collide with a PSA Airlines MHIRJ CRJ700 regional jet, killing the 67 people on the two aircraft.
The Black Hawk was not using its ADS-B Out system, Senator Cantwell has said.
At the time of the collision, the helicopter was flying at about 300ft – exceeding the 200ft altitude cap in that flight corridor, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
