Lawmakers in both parties say Congress is gearing up to play an aggressive role in the federal response to this week’s deadly collision between a military helicopter and a commercial passenger plane over the Potomac River near Washington.
The lawmakers are treading carefully in the early stages of that process, wary of getting ahead of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) — the independent body that spearheads all federal investigations into aviation disasters — or creating appearances that they’re politicizing the tragedy while the bodies of victims are still being recovered.
But members of key congressional committees — including Transportation and Infrastructure, Armed Services and Oversight — say Congress will ultimately dive in with their own rigorous investigations, which are likely to examine pilot training programs under the Pentagon and flight traffic volume at Reagan Washington National Airport. Legislative reforms could follow.
“Congress has an important role in conducting oversight of federal agencies, including the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration], and ensuring the aviation industry is the gold standard of the world,” Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas), chair of the Transportation Committee’s aviation subpanel, told The Hill in a statement. “We want the NTSB to do their job and investigate the situation, and we will do ours.”
Top lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are urging a cautious path forward as the NTSB continues its investigation. A source close to Nehls told The Hill that the NTSB briefed the congressman along with Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.), the chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Wash.), the panel’s ranking member, among others.
“It is important to let the NTSB complete its work before we consider any potential policy response,” Larsen echoed in a statement.
An NTSB board member said a preliminary report should be completed within 30 days.
While lawmakers are urging a steady approach to congressional oversight, a wildcard will be President Trump, who has jumped into the debate with early and unsubstantiated accusations that the collision was the result of hiring policies that promoted diversity at the FAA. He blamed the Obama and Biden administrations for adopting those practices — known broadly as diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) — which he said led to an erosion of brain-power among air traffic controllers.
“The FAA is actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities … under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative spelled out on the company’s website,” Trump said Thursday during a press briefing.
Several fact-checking organizations quickly pointed out that the same language was the stated policy of the FAA under the first Trump administration. But some Republicans on Capitol Hill, including Nehls, are already vowing to make Trump’s DEI claims a part of their investigation — a dynamic that would quickly threaten a bipartisan approach to the congressional response.
“We’re dealing with lives each and every day, and so I think we do want the best and the brightest, and I don’t care if you’re pink, purple — I don’t care about any of that,” Nehls said in an interview with Newsmax.
“So this is an issue I think that Congress can look at,” he continued. “President Trump is leaning forward in the saddle and saying we got to get rid of this DEI.”
Democrats have gone on offense against the idea, accusing Trump of exploiting the tragedy to score political points with his conservative base.
“We don’t need misdirection, and we don’t need misinformation coming from the highest office in the land. We need integrity, we need decency, we need leadership,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Friday.
“There is not a scintilla of evidence that exists to suggest that women and people of color are to blame for the tragedy that took place,” he added. “And it was shameful.”
“It never does any good to speculate on the causes of aviation accidents before we have the facts and the details. However, I know it’s not DEI because it never is,” echoed Larsen. “The NTSB will look at the causes and contributing factors of this accident. It is important to let the NTSB complete its work before we consider any potential policy response.”
It’s not only Democrats who are pushing back against Trump’s DEI focus. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), a conservative member of the Transportation Committee, is urging policymakers of all stripes to resist the temptation of assigning blame before the cause of the tragedy is determined.
“People lost their lives,” he said. “Let’s hold off on the finger-pointing.”
Lawmakers, meanwhile, are eyeing other investigative avenues aside from Trump’s DEI allegations. Nehls, for example, pointed to reports about shortages in air traffic control personnel at National Airport. The tower at that hub had 19 fully certified controllers as of September 2023 — according to The New York Times, which cited the most recent Air Traffic Controller Workforce Plan — despite the controller union saying there should be 30.
The FAA said in a report reviewed by several news organizations that staffing in the tower Wednesday night was “not normal” and a single controller was communicating with both helicopters and airplanes.
“We have a staffing issue at the Reagan Airport, DCA, and it must be addressed,” Nehls said on Newsmax.
“We need to make sure that if these airports are struggling with air traffic controllers, they bring it to our attention and we can try to encourage more younger people to get into that field,” he noted in a Fox News interview. “Overall I believe our record, our safety record, is the gold standard. But when we have an issue like this, it needs to be addressed, and I believe the NTSB will conduct a very thorough investigation and they’ll come up with some recommendations to make sure that we can mitigate risk and something like this never takes place again.”
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said the House Armed Services Committee, which he sits on, should also be involved in congressional oversight because a military aircraft was involved in the crash. The Nebraska Republican — who was an aircraft mishap investigator in the Air Force — suggested there be a review into the congestion surrounding National Airport and a military evaluation of how helicopter patterns could be safer around the busy hub.
“It will be part of the investigation, is there a way to lower the threat around Reagan National with helicopters flying there. And I think they’re gonna analyze that,” Bacon said. “It would behoove the [House Armed Services Committee] to ask what did that review find from the Pentagon.”
If House lawmakers are treading lightly into the debate, some senators have already stepped more forcefully by proposing specific early reforms.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), for instance, says air traffic at National Airport is much too high for a relatively small airport so close to Washington. He was among the regional lawmakers who had voted last year against an FAA reauthorization bill to protest a provision that added five new long-distance flights to the airport each day. The language was championed by lawmakers in both parties, but was staunchly opposed by members from Virginia and Maryland, who warned that the additional congestion would create safety hazards.
In the wake of Wednesday’s tragedy, Kaine and other local policymakers are now reiterating their calls to disperse flights in and out of Washington to other regional airports, including Dulles International Airport, which is roughly 25 miles west of the U.S. Capitol in Virginia.
“We need to spread the traffic among these airports, rather than have such congestion into Reagan National,” Kaine told Fox News on Thursday.
As lawmakers weigh their options, the source close to Nehls noted that the congressman worked with the NTSB after the derailment of a freight train in East Palestine, Ohio, in early 2023 — an incident that sent thousands of gallons of toxic materials into the air and surrounding waterways. The NTSB also took the lead on that probe, with Congress staging hearings and proposing reforms in the months that followed. Some lawmakers expect the process surrounding the National Airport crash will play out in similar fashion.
