Months before Wednesday night’s fatal midair collision of an American Airlines passenger jet and an Army helicopter in Washington, lawmakers brushed off safety warnings amid midflight near-misses and passed an industry-backed measure designed to add additional flight traffic at the same DC airport where the January 29 disaster unfolded.
Soon after a March 2023 near collision at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, House lawmakers considered a provision to increase the number of flights allowed at the facility. It is one of only two airports in the country owned by the federal government, giving Congress unique authority over its operations.
The legislation was supported by lawmakers seeking more direct flights to their home states and airlines eager for expanded routes. It was opposed by lawmakers who asserted that the airport was already overstressed by flight volume in the capital region’s busy airspace.
“The bill just proposed would go far beyond past attempts to expand slots at [the Reagan Airport], dangerously overloading the airport’s operational capacity to benefit one airline,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) told the Washington Post at the time. “The very title of the ‘Direct Access to the Capital Act’ gives the game away that this bill is written to maximize the personal convenience of a comparatively small number of powerful, well-connected individuals at the expense of safety and efficiency of flights — which should be our top priority.”
The measure’s sponsor, Rep. Burgess Owens (R-UT), insisted: “Deliberate misinformation has been circulating wildly among my colleagues, and I want to be clear: Our effort is not about benefiting one airport, one airline, or any one member of Congress. It is about empowering American consumers by providing more options and greater convenience for people traveling to and from Washington, D.C.”
Among Owens’s top contributors is the corporate political action committee…
Auteur: Freddy Brewster
