Congress considers requiring US military to use helicopter safety alerts near DC airport, report near misses
WASHINGTON, Dec 8 – U.S. military helicopters on training missions would need to broadcast alerts to nearby commercial aviation aircraft around Reagan Washington National Airport to avoid collisions under annual defense policy legislation unveiled late Sunday.
In January, an Army Black Hawk helicopter on a training mission that was not using a key safety system known as ADS-B collided with an American Airlines regional jet killed 67 people near the airport just outside Washington. The 3,000-page legislation would also require the Pentagon to disclose to Congress the number of near misses that military aircraft have had with commercial aircraft during the last 10 years and future annual reports on incidents.
(Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington)