The House and Senate are sparring over a legislative response to the January 2025 midair collision near Washington, DC
Influential US Senator Ted Cruz has made clear that a battle in Washington over mandating that aircraft carry automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast In (ADS-B In) is not over, despite broad support for a bill that recently cleared the House of Representatives.
The Air Line Pilots Association has Cruz’s back.
Both have problems with the Airspace Location and Enhanced Risk Transparency (ALERT) Act., which the US House passed on 14 April by a 396 to 10 vote, sending it to the Senate for consideration.
“The ALERT Act would not deliver the safety measures necessary to prevent another midair collision, as it lacks the critical improvements our aviation system needs,” Cruz posted on 14 April to X. “Congress should not advance a bill that neither improves aviation safety nor closes the loopholes that have allowed operators, including the military, to fly blind in congested airspace.”
The bill would require large aircraft to carry both ADS-B In and another system called Airborne Collision Avoidance System X (ACAS X).
“This legislation does not implement a comprehensive traffic awareness, traffic alerting and collision avoidance system that expands pilots’ situational awareness and provides earlier traffic alerting,” ALPA said of the ALERT Act on 15 April.
Cruz and his Senate colleagues, with support from groups including ALPA, have written their own version of legislation seeking to address the need for improved collision-avoidance technologies. Both bills respond to the deadly January 2025 midair collision involving a regional passenger jet and US Army helicopter over Washington, DC.
The Senate bill — the Rotorcraft Operations Transparency and Oversight Reform (ROTOR) Act -— would specifically mandate that aircraft now required to have ADS-B Out also be required to have ADS-B In. All aircraft, regardless of size, must have ADS-B Out when flying in controlled airspace, under existing FAA rules.
The In functionality allows ADS-B systems to generate cockpit warnings about nearby traffic and to display those aircraft on cockpit screens. Notably, the displays tell pilots the bearing of other aircraft.
The competing ALERT Act’s requirements would apply to only aircraft already required to carry Traffic Collision Avoidance Systems (TCAS) – in other words, large jets and regional aircraft with more than 30 seats.
It would require that those aircraft, by end-2031, have both ADS-B In and ACAS X – a new iteration of TCAS. The ADS-B In data would need to feed into the ACAS X system, providing it with additional information about nearby traffic. The House bill would also require rotorcraft have similar technology, though it does not set a deadline.
The bills’ differences have caused much dispute.
ALPA endorses the ROTOR Act for having a clear ADS-B In mandate, and criticises the ALERT Act for tying ADS-B In to ACAS X, which at low altitudes does not provide traffic alerts.
“ACAS-Xa is suppressed below 1,000 feet, precisely when pilots most need situational awareness near airports,” says ALPA. “The full ADS-B In suite required by the ROTOR Act addresses this gap.”
Though ACAS X could possibly be modified to function at lower altitudes, “certification, production and installation of this new technology is highly unlikely by 2031”, ALPA says.
The union also says the Alert Act does not mandate “the full ADS-B In capability suite”.
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