U.S. House Leaders Voice “Serious Concerns” About the Safety of the U.S. Aviation System

by Yehudit Garmaise

After a FedEx cargo plane and a Southwest Airlines passenger plane nearly collided on February 4 and Delta Airlines barely stopped in time to avoid crashing into an American Airlines plane on one of JFK’s runways, members of the US Congress voiced “serious concerns” about the country’s aviation system.

When the FedEx cargo plane and the Southwest passenger plane nearly collided on Saturday, they were "probably less than 100 feet" apart, said U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) chair Jennifer Homendy, who added that the event could have been "catastrophic."

 The two recent incidents, plus a computer system glitch that disrupted more than 11,000 flights across the country on January 11, revealed the aviation system is in need of "urgent attention,” said US Rep Sam Graves (R-Mo), who chairs the House’s Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Reuters reported.

 "Right now, the alarm bells should be going off across the aviation industry,” US Representative Garret Graves, (R-La.), who chairs an aviation subcommittee, said at a hearing. “Our system is stretched and stressed."

"We need to double down on what is it that's causing these, what have we missed in our voluntary systems, what have we missed in our data," said David Boulter, the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) acting head of aviation safety, who called the incidents “serious.”

A larger FAA staff, however, is likely not what is needed after increased Congressional funding allowed the FAA to hire 200 new aviation safety employees in the last year: after hiring 200 employees in the year previous, Boulter pointed out.

Appropriate leadership may be what is necessary as some lawmakers raised concerns the FAA has not had a permanent administrator since April 1, 2022. 

Another issue may be that the government needs to "pick up the pace" on its efforts to modernize FAA computer systems, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on Monday.