ALERT Act

(a) Findings. Congress finds the following:

(1) On January 29, 2025, about 8:48 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, a Sikorsky UH-60L operated by the United States Army under the callsign PAT25 (Priority Air Transport 25) and an MHI RJ Aviation (formerly Bombardier) CRJ700 operated by PSA Airlines as American Airlines flight 5342, collided in flight about 0.5 miles southeast of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA), Arlington, Virginia, and impacted the Potomac River in southwest Washington, D.C.

(2) The 2 pilots, 2 flight attendants, and 60 passengers onboard the airplane and 3 crewmembers onboard the helicopter died.

(3) This tragedy represents the deadliest aviation disaster in the United States since the crash of American Airlines Flight 587 in 2001 and the first fatal major commercial passenger flight accident in the United States since Colgan Air Flight 3407 in 2009.

(4) Passengers aboard Flight 5342 included American citizens from across the country and international travelers, among them championship figure skaters and coaches returning from competition, military servicemembers, and families traveling for personal and professional reasons, each of whom is mourned by loved ones.

(5) Crewmembers aboard Flight 5342 served their passengers with professionalism and dedication and the three United States Army soldiers aboard Priority Air Transport 25 gave their lives in service to this Nation.

(6) Emergency responders from Alexandria City Fire Department, Alexandria Police Department, Anne Arundel Fire Department, Arlington County Fire & Rescue, Arlington County Office of Emergency Management, Arlington Police Department, Baltimore City Fire Department, Baltimore Police, Charles County Fire and Rescue, DC Fire Department & EMS, DC Metropolitan Police Department, Fairfax City Fire & Rescue, Fairfax County Fire & Rescue Department, Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Maryland Natural Resources Police, Maryland State Police, Metropolitan Police Department, Montgomery County Fire and Rescue, Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) Fire & Rescue, MWAA Police, NCR-Incident Management Team, Office of Chief Medical Examiner of the District of Columbia, Prince George's County Fire & Rescue, Prince William Fire & Rescue, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Navy Supervisor of Salvage and Diving, Virginia Department of Emergency Management, Virginia State Police, and other local, state, and Federal agencies conducted heroic rescue and recovery operations in frigid, dangerous conditions—including near-freezing water temperatures and strong winds—working tirelessly to recover all 67 victims and reunite them with their loved ones.

(7) The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) immediately launched a full investigation and, on March 7, 2025, issued urgent safety recommendations to prohibit operations on Helicopter Route 4 during simultaneous runway operations, which the Department of Transportation and Federal Aviation Administration promptly implemented.

(8) The NTSB held a public meeting on January 27, 2026, where the NTSB determined that the probable cause of the accident was the FAA’s placement of a helicopter route in close proximity to a runway approach path; their failure to regularly review and evaluate helicopter routes and available data, and their failure to act on recommendations to mitigate the risk of a midair collision near DCA; as well as the air traffic system’s overreliance on visual separation in order to promote efficient traffic flow without consideration for the limitations of the see-and-avoid concept.

(9) The NTSB determined that the lack of effective pilot-applied visual separation by the helicopter crew, the tower team’s loss of situation awareness and degraded performance due to the high workload of the combined helicopter and local control positions and the absence of a risk assessment process to identify and mitigate real-time operational risk factors, and the Army’s failure to ensure pilots were aware of the effects of error tolerances on barometric altimeters in their helicopters, were also causal to the collision.

(10) The NTSB further determined that contributing factors included the limitations of the traffic awareness and collision alerting systems on both aircraft, which precluded effective alerting of the impending collision to the flight crews; an unsustainable airport arrival rate, increasing traffic volume with a changing fleet mix, and airline scheduling practices at DCA, which regularly strained the DCA air traffic control tower workforce and degraded safety over time; the Army’s lack of a fully implemented safety management system, which should have identified and addressed hazards associated with altitude exceedances on the Washington, DC, helicopter routes; the FAA’s failure across multiple organizations to implement previous NTSB recommendations, including Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast In, and to follow and fully integrate its established safety management system, which should have led to several organizational and operational changes based on previously identified risks that were known to management; and the absence of effective data sharing and analysis among the FAA, aircraft operators, and other relevant organizations.

(11) The NTSB on January 27, 2026, adopted 74 findings and issued 50 safety recommendations to the Department of Transportation, the FAA, the United States Army, the Department of Defense Policy Board on Federal Aviation, the inspector general of the Department of Transportation, and RTCA Program Management Committee to prevent similar accidents in the future.

(12) The families of the victims have demonstrated extraordinary courage and dignity in their grief, and have called for accountability and systemic reform so that no other family will endure such loss.

(13) Congress remains committed to ensuring that the aviation system of the United States achieves the highest possible standard of safety, and that the lessons of this tragedy are fully learned and acted upon.

(b) Sense of Congress. It is the sense of Congress that—

(1) Congress mourns the loss of all 67 lives taken in the midair collision near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on January 29, 2025, and extends its deepest condolences to the families, friends, and communities of all those who perished;

(2) Congress honors the four crew members of American Airlines Flight 5342 who served their passengers with professionalism and dedication;

(3) Congress honors the three United States Army soldiers aboard Priority Air Transport 25, who gave their lives in service to this nation;

(4) Congress honors the passengers of Flight 5342, including the figure skaters and coaches of the United States figure skating community and all other individuals whose lives, achievements, and contributions to their families and communities are irreplaceable;

(5) Congress commends the first responders who worked with valor and dedication under dangerous conditions to conduct rescue and recovery operations in the Potomac River;

(6) Congress affirms its full support for the National Transportation Safety Board, its mission of independent accident investigation, and the integrity of its investigative process, and herein the ALERT Act responds to all of the 50 recommendations to prevent a similar tragedy from reoccurring;

(7) Congress further commits to conducting rigorous oversight to ensure accountability for implementing these safety recommendations and ensuring the systemic failures that contributed to this disaster are fully addressed; and

(8) Congress pledges, on behalf of the American people, that the 67 lives lost on January 29, 2025, will not be forgotten, and that their memory will be honored by this Nation's commitment to an aviation system that is worthy of the trust placed in it by every passenger who boards an aircraft in the United States.