The mid-air collision of American Airlines Flight 5342 with an Army helicopter that sent both aircraft into the chilly Potomac River in Washington, DC, in January, was as shocking as it was deadly. Video of the Sikorsky helicopter flying into the airliner and more footage of the unsuccessful attempts at finding survivors in the water brought global attention to a horrifying accident that killed 67 people.

So it is highly disturbing to the chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, that helicopter flight restrictions, put in place just days after the accident, would be rolled back under Defense Department funding legislation passed by the House of Representatives on Wednesday.

Jennifer Homendy said she was unaware that drafters of the defense spending bill were planning to make these changes. According to her, no one at the NTSB was consulted about their impact on safety at the airport, known as DCA.

Sam Lilly, killed in the crash, was a pilot on Flight 5342

Her emotional reaction eschewed the political doublespeak common in Washington, and for the most part avoided aviation jargon, too. She put it bluntly: the plan to return to the DOD “unfettered” access to airspace around the area’s busiest airport was “terrible”, “shameful”, “a step backward” and “a safety whitewash.”

“If it sounds like I’m mad, I am mad,” she said.

As written, the DOD would no longer be bound by safety measures enacted after the accident that require operators of military aircraft to inform other aviators of their presence by broadcasting their position via ADS-B Out.  The legislation seems to conclude that the Traffic Collision and Avoidance System, known as TCAS and standard on aircraft, would be sufficient to avoid collisions. Homendy insists that’s not right.

TCAS alerts, she said “are inhibited below 900 feet.” When the Army helicopter flew into the American flight on January 29th, the aircraft were well below that altitude, flying under 300 feet. The TCAS alert didn’t give pilots enough time to respond. The situation as described in the DOD spending bill, Homendy reminded reporters, “is exactly what existed at 8pm on Janury 29^th”.

The Livingston family was killed on AA Flight 5342.

Amy Hunter, whose cousin, Peter Livingston, his wife Donna and their two children were killed in the crash, said she did not know what was motivating the reversal in military flight policy around Reagan National, adding, “Any change affecting DCA airspace must strengthen safety, not dilute it.”

Considering the DC metropolitan area ranks 20th in the nation for size, DCA is disproportionately busy. “It operates at full capacity, with a takeoff or landing every minute, for much of the day,” according to the airport’s CEO, Jack Potter. It also has a spotty safety record with a high number of events in which an airplane is either not where it should be or has run off the runway. But the most stunning statistic emerged in the NTSB’s investigation into the Flight 5342 disaster.

“Between October 2021 and December 2024, there were over 15,000 close-proximity events between commercial aircraft and helicopters at DCA,” Homendy told a Senate subcommittee two months after the crash. At that time she also thanked the Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy for so quickly responding to the agency’s request to restrict the airspace until investigators could understand all the factors contributing to the disaster.

Nine months later, with the final report not yet written, Homendy is insisting military aircraft operating unseen in DC’s busy, complex, commercial airspace is a confirmed threat.

“We are thorough, and we are fact-based,” she told the Senators in March. “We leave no stone unturned, and we let the evidence guide us.”

She is hellbent on convincing lawmakers to do the same.