A bill that was hailed by the Senate for its aviation safety provisions and unanimously passed, was shot down by the House in a narrow vote Tuesday after the Pentagon withdrew its support.
Despite clearing the Senate with unanimous consent in December, the Rotorcraft Operations Transparency and Oversight Reform (ROTOR) Act received a vote of 264 to 133 in the House, failing to meet the two-thirds majority required to pass under a fast-track process.
Co-led by Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., the ROTOR Act is a direct response to the January 2025 midair collision between an American Airlines passenger jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said the crash, which killed 67 people, was preventable.
The ROTOR Act aimed to strengthen federal oversight of military and civilian aviation by improving flight-tracking and safety requirements and tightening coordination in congested airspace to help prevent midair collisions and other accidents.
A central provision would have required aircraft to carry Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) equipment – a GPS-based tracking system that transmits location data to air traffic controllers and nearby aircraft – and to keep it activated during routine military training flights. The bill allowed the system to be turned off for sensitive missions.
The Black Hawk helicopter was completing a training flight when it collided with the American Airlines jet and had its ADS-B turned off, the NTSB found in its investigation.
The House’s failure to pass the ROTOR Act follows the Department of Defense (DOD) – rebranded as the Department of War by the Trump administration – withdrawing its support for the measure on Monday.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement that “enactment [of the ROTOR Act] would create significant unresolved budgetary burdens and operational security risks affecting national defense activities.”
Parnell added that the DOD worked with the Senate in drafting the legislation and that the version of the bill passed by the Senate “does not reflect several of the mutually discussed updates.”
“The Department remains ready to continue productive dialogue with Congress to ensure the legislation achieves its safety goals while protecting essential operational capabilities and resources,” Parnell added.
Cruz and Cantwell replied to the DOD’s opposition with a statement of their own, saying that, “The ROTOR Act includes specific language at the Pentagon’s behest to best protect classified flights. Proficiency flights – like the one that killed 67 people last January – should have to broadcast their position using ADS-B Out in busy airspace like every other military and civilian flight.”
“We appreciate the dialogue with the Pentagon and look forward to the ROTOR Act’s passage so that our skies are made safer immediately,” the senators added.
The act has not only faced opposition from the DOD. House Transportation Chair Sam Graves, R-Mo., said during a Monday markup that the ROTOR Act “does not sufficiently or properly address the findings and recommendations of the [NTSB].”
In its final report on the DCA collision, the NTSB made 50 recommendations. Graves said he opposes the act because it only addresses two of those recommendations, and it “provides an overly prescriptive approach to mandating a specific technology,” which “can prove burdensome to some operators and create barriers to its adoption.”
Instead, Graves introduced his own ALERT Act last week with Reps. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., Mike Rogers, R-Ala., and Adam Smith, D-Wash., which he said responds to each of the NTSB’s recommendations.
Graves said Tuesday that he was committed to marking up the ALERT Act as soon as next week if the House did not approve the ROTOR Act.