By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Senior U.S. officials will answer questions from senators Wednesday about a May 1 incident in which two passenger airline flights were forced to abort landings at Reagan Washington National Airport because of a nearby Army helicopter.
Brigadier General Matthew Braman, director of Army Aviation, Acting Federal Aviation Administration head Chris Rocheleau and National Transportation Safety Board chair Jennifer Homendy will appear at a closed-door roundtable meeting with a Senate Commerce subcommittee on aviation to discuss the recent near miss incident, said a spokesperson for Senator Jerry Moran who chairs the panel.
On January 29, a Black Hawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines passenger jet near Reagan, killing 67 people.
Separately, two dozen U.S. senators on Monday asked the inspector generals for the Pentagon and Transportation Department to open audits in response to the collision and ongoing coordination issues between the Army and air traffic control at Reagan (DCA).
Moran’s office said senators will also receive “an updated status on military helicopter operations in and around the DCA airspace.”
Rocheleau said last week the agency had barred the Army from training or priority transport flights after the incident.
“We’ve shut those down until such time as we’re comfortable with kind of what we call new rules of the road,” Rocheleau said.
The NTSB confirmed Homendy would take part. The FAA and Army did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Last week, a group of seven Democratic senators on Thursday introduced sweeping air safety legislation after the fatal collision.
The Army told the Associated Press last month that military air traffic controllers lost contact with the helicopter for about 20 seconds as it neared the Pentagon on the May 1 flight.
Delta Air Lines Flight 1671, an Airbus A319 that had originated in Orlando, and Republic Airways Flight 5825, an Embraer 170 that had departed from Boston, were both forced to perform go-arounds due to the nearby Army helicopter.
The U.S. Army on May 5 suspended helicopter flights in the vicinity of the Pentagon after the incident.
The FAA separately disclosed last month a hotline connecting the Pentagon and air traffic controllers at Reagan has been inoperable since March 2022.
(Reporting by David Shepardson, Editing by William Maclean)
