Senate Passes Aviation Safety Bill Aiming to Prevent Further Midair Collisions

The legislation passed by unanimous consent, bypassing a formal vote with no senators standing to oppose it.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) speaks during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on June 25, 2025. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

The Senate on Dec. 17 passed Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) bill that creates new safety requirements for nearly all aircraft and helicopters, while also stripping a provision out of the recently passed defense bill that several lawmakers say created a dangerous loophole for military helicopters.

Cruz’s ROTOR Act passed by unanimous consent, a fast-track mechanism that bypasses a formal vote if no lawmaker stands up to contest it.

The bill “will save lives,” the Texas senator said ahead of its passage on Wednesday afternoon. Cruz serves as chairman of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

“This bill will be a fitting way to honor the lives of those lost nearly one year ago over the Potomac River,” Cruz wrote on social media. “The goal of the victims’ families is to ensure no one else endures a similar avoidable, completely unnecessary, tragedy.”

The bill requires virtually all aircraft and helicopters to utilize ADS-B Out and In technology, which transmits the vehicle’s GPS location, altitude, ground speed, and other information to ground controllers and other aircraft every second.

ADS-B Out is needed for a plane or helicopter to transmit its location data, while ADS-B In allows an aircraft to receive those transmissions from other vehicles that are in the sky simultaneously.

Last week, Cruz and other lawmakers said a provision in the since-passed National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) created a loophole for the Pentagon to proceed with certain helicopter flights while keeping the transmitting technology switched off.

ADS-B was not engaged on the Army Black Hawk helicopter involved in the deadly midair collision over the Potomac River with a regional jet in January that killed 67 people. The CRJ700 regional jet did not possess ADS-B In, which is required to receive ADS-B Out signals.

“Almost a year after 67 lives were lost when a military helicopter hit American Airlines flight 5342 over the Potomac River, the NDAA fails to make the skies safer,” Cruz and Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), and Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) wrote in a joint statement.

“As drafted, the NDAA protects the status quo, allowing military aircraft to keep flying in DC airspace under different rules and with outdated transmission requirements.”

After Congress passed the NDAA, Cruz amended his ROTOR Act to include language that strips the helicopter provision from the defense bill.

Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which investigates aviation and other transportation-related incidents, praised the new legislation.

“Nearly 3 decades. You read that right; 3 decades! That’s how long @NTSB has been advocating for implementation of ADS-B In,” she wrote on social media.

Homendy said that when the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued rules in 2010 on using ADS-B Out, the NTSB told the agency it was concerned that aircraft would not also be required to use ADS-B In, as it allows them to receive the location signals from other planes and helicopters.

She said a deadly midair collision in Ketchikan, Alaska, in 2019 led to the NTSB reiterating its desire to see all aircraft use the location transmitting and receiving technology.

“With today’s passage of the ROTOR Act in the Senate, we are one step closer toward implementation of our longstanding recommendations,” Homendy said.