WASHINGTON (Gray DC) – The deadly collision between an airplane and a helicopter in Washington, DC was top of mind for many U.S. Senators Thursday during an already busy week.
Only the Senate was scheduled to be in Thursday, with high-profile confirmation hearings at the top of the day’s agenda. Senators were in town when the crash happened over the Potomac River, but most House members were out of town.
American Airlines flight 5342 from Wichita, KS to Reagan National Airport had 64 people on board when it collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter with three soldiers on board. All 67 people are presumed dead.
Senators Jerry Moran (R-KS) and Roger Marshall (R-KS) spent Wednesday night and all day Thursday near the scene of the crash and giving press briefings. Congressman Ron Estes (R-KS), who represents the Wichita area, gave press briefings from his district.
Sen. Moran said he expects his Subcommittee on Aviation Safety, Operations and Innovation will have a roll investigating the tragedy.
“Before long, we need to make sure… between the full [Commerce] Committee and Subcommittee [on Aviation] that we examine not only what NTSB reports, but also have witnesses in front of our committee,” Sen. Moran said. “While the Commerce Committee has jurisdiction over aviation, it’s a different committee that has jurisdiction over defense.”
All members of the bipartisan Kansas congressional delegation released a statement Thursday reading, in part, “our focus now is supporting the family and friends of those who perished, including the crew and military personnel, and then getting answers for the grieving individuals who have lost a loved one and making sure this doesn’t happen again.”
Mid-day Thursday, President Donald Trump spoke about the crash, which included a claim that “diversity” was a cause of the crash. When a White House reporter asked how he came to that conclusion, Trump responded “because I have common sense.”
Sen. Marshall said he thought Trump’s comments offered “radical transparency.” Gray DC asked Sen. Marshall if that also meant he supported the claim of “diversity” being a cause for the crash, for which there is no supporting evidence.
“I have no idea, certainly I want air traffic controllers, just like my pilots, to be there because of their merit, not because of anything else,” Marshall said. “And so I certainly agree with President Trump, and that’s what this country was founded on, so I don’t know where that comments are coming from.”
During a Senate Democrats press briefing on Trump nominee Russell Vought, a number of Senate democrats voiced concern over airway safety, alongside a condemnation of Trump’s comments.
“Now this bogus buyout thing has been put on the table… and maybe they take it,” Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) said on air traffic controller staffing numbers. “We just did a bill to try and bulk up the nation’s air traffic controllers because we’ve been short air traffic controllers, and now a Russ Vought strategy is to ‘traumatize’ the federal workforce. That lands particularly hard with me this morning.”
Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) thanked first responders, including those from his state of Maryland, and called Trump’s comments “grotesque.”
Maryland and Virginia have contributed a large number of first responders to the scene of the crash, in addition to the federal and DC responders.
The last major commercial airline tragedy in the United States was the 2009 Colgan Air Flight 3407 crash, which killed a total of 50 people. The Senate Subcommittee on Aviation, which Sen. Moran now leads, investigated the crash and held a hearing a year after the accident.
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