America’s worst air disaster in a generation happened at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, and its powerful frequent flyers are watching the aftermath intently.
Members of Congress have an intimate relationship with the airport, which is a 10-minute drive from Capitol Hill and is used by hundreds of lawmakers as a commuter hub. They’ve also taken an unusually active role in managing it, and lawmakers were quick to offer condolences, share observations, assert oversight authority and otherwise insert themselves after the deadly crash.
“It is the American airport,” said Rep. Norma Torres (D-Calif.), who said Reagan National isn’t just the most convenient airport for lawmakers. “It’s the place where citizens all over the country come to lobby their members of Congress, their US senators on issues of extreme importance to them.”
That observation has been used to justify decades of congressional interventions into the airport’s operations. An act of Congress governs how many flights can come in and out of it and how far they can fly. Then-Speaker Newt Gingrich and congressional Republicans renamed it for the 40th president over local objections in 1998. And it’s so frequently trafficked by lawmakers that Capitol Police are frequently on site to protect lawmakers who have sometimes been accosted there by vocal fellow flyers.
And it is now presaging an active effort by multiple congressional committees to probe aspects of the crash, which is being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board. Leaders of the House Transportation and Senate Commerce committees have announced plans to monitor the response, as have the chambers’ Armed Services panels, given the involvement of a military helicopter.
Already the disaster has placed a spotlight on the many connections between Reagan National and Capitol Hill.
A direct-to-Reagan National route is highly coveted by many lawmakers, who frequently lobby airlines to get one for their home states and districts — as Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) did for the inbound-from-Wichita jet that crashed into an Army helicopter while on approach to Reagan Wednesday.
In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, which is believed to have killed 67, members of the Washington-area congressional delegation were quick to revisit a fierce debate over the heavy aviation traffic at and around the airport. Local lawmakers who have fielded years of constituent noise complaints opposed an effort to add additional flight slots, arguing it would further strain the busy Washington airspace. A bipartisan group of lawmakers overruled those objections, adding five round-trip flights to benefit their constituents (and themselves).
“I’ve been praying that there wouldn’t have been something like last night, but kind of dreading in my heart that there would be,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who opposed adding the new flights. There is no direct evidence that the additional daily traffic played a role in Wednesday’s crash.
More broadly, the tragedy is prompting shock and reflection among lawmakers who might have themselves been victims had the mid-air collision happened at a different time, to a different plane.
It’s not the first time a Washington air tragedy has made an impact on Capitol Hill. After the January 1982 crash of an Air Florida jetliner, Reagan himself invited Congressional Budget Office worker Lenny Skutnik to his State of the Union address two weeks later — paying tribute to Skutnik for diving into the icy Potomac to save a stricken passenger.
Today, cars can be seen idling along the Capitol’s East Front on “fly-out” days, waiting to whisk members across the Potomac River to the Reagan National terminal. Major airlines employ staff solely devoted to handling lawmakers’ reservations into and out of the airport.
“The last time I flew out of DCA it occurred to me there was a lot of traffic in and around the area, and it felt like something like this could happen,” said Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.). “It’s devastating to see a crash like this and absorb what was supposed to be a safe flight for everyone end in such devastation.”
“I fly on American Airlines all the time, on that same approach, twice a week and so it could happen to anybody,” said Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.). “It brings to light how one little mistake can create such a tragedy, and you hate it for all the people involved, but you know, hopefully we can get to the bottom of it and find out what happened.”
To that end, various House committees received briefings from the FAA and NTSB on the incident Thursday. One House Transportation Committee member, granted anonymity to describe private discussions on the panel, said a hearing on the crash is likely to be scheduled soon.
As with all things on Capitol Hill, larger political considerations have lingered over members’ public response to the tragedy. The early suggestion from a small handful of conservatives that diversity, equity and inclusion programs could be at fault was turbocharged when President Donald Trump cited that as a possible cause at a Thursday afternoon news conference. In turn, some Democrats, including Torres, pointed to Trump’s decision to attack federal workers as a precipitating factor.
But many others cautioned against a rush to judgment. Once a cause is firmly identified, Congress could play a role in enacting legislation to prevent another similar crash — as it did after the 2009 crash of Colgan Air flight near Buffalo, New York, toughening the regulations for regional airlines and pilot fatigue standards.
Former Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), an ex-chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said it would be hard for Congress to avoid revisiting just how much traffic is packed into the airspace surrounding Reagan National — and Congress’ efforts to pack more flights in.
“I’m not going to say that was a cause of this, but it is an incredibly hectic corridor between the military traffic and the commercial traffic and, of course, other helicopters,” he said. “I would hope that members of Congress would back off on pressuring the airport for more and more direct flights to serve them and heed both the concerns of the airport and potentially of the FAA and air traffic control.”
Several sitting members agreed, including Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), a Transportation Committee member. Burchett said in an interview that he wants to review air traffic control transcripts and reexamine Congress’ decision to allow more Reagan National flights.
“I’ve flown in there over a hundred times, I’m always amazed at the amount of traffic,” Burchett said.
But that doesn’t mean he or fellow lawmakers are ready to give up on their convenient air hub. Tuberville said he didn’t see much of an alternative to his weekly winged commute to and from Auburn, Alabama: “Beats driving.”
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