A U.S. House of Representatives oversight subcommittee said on Thursday it is investigating the collision in January between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet that killed 67 people near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. The House Oversight subcommittee on Military and Foreign Affairs said they are probing the crash and the military's use of airspace in the U.S. capital region.<br/>
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When Congress pushed ahead last year with adding 10 new daily flights to Washington D.C.’s Reagan National Airport, the Federal Aviation Administration had data showing an unnerving number of near misses in the already-crowded skies — something lawmakers apparently did not know. The FAA, which manages the nation’s airspace and oversees aviation safety, had data on dozens of incidents that experts said documented a safety concern. That data didn’t prompt any action before January’s deadly midair collision between an American Airlines jetliner and a military helicopter that killed 67 people. “Why someone was not paying attention to those numbers and those events are questions yet to be answered,” said James Hall, a former National Transportation Safety Board chair during the Clinton administration. “What not to do is to ignore that many incidents.” Data collected by the FAA shows close calls were far more frequent than travelers and outside aviation experts knew at Reagan National, which was built to handle 15m passengers a year, not the 25m traveling through it annually. Now, safety experts and family members who lost loved ones in the Jan. 29 crash are asking why action wasn’t taken earlier. The NTSB said airplane pilots were alerted to take evasive action to avoid hitting helicopters at least once a month from 2011 through 2024, citing data compiled by the FAA, and that there were 85 near misses when aircraft were within a few hundred feet (meters) of each other during recent years. “How does that happen in this day and age and somebody doesn’t do something about it?” asked Doug Lane, whose wife, Christine Conrad Lane, and their 16-year-old son, Spencer, died in the crash. Pilots have long worried about the congested and complex airspace around Reagan National, near the heart of the capital, where flights must maneuver around military aircraft and restricted areas. It was no secret there had been previous close calls, but the numbers found by the NTSB were alarming.<br/>
The largest federal employee union filed a lawsuit on Thursday seeking to block President Donald Trump’s administration from ending collective bargaining for nearly 50,000 Transportation Security Administration officers that staff checkpoints at U.S. airports and other transportation hubs. The American Federation of Government Employees filed a lawsuit in Seattle, Washington, federal court, claiming the U.S. Department of Homeland Security canceled a bargaining agreement covering TSA officers as retaliation against the union for challenging other Trump administration initiatives. The lawsuit seeks to block TSA from canceling a seven-year collective bargaining deal, which was enacted last year, and bar DHS from rescinding it again. “This retaliatory action is in accord with a broader Trump administration policy of terminating contracts in retaliation for protected speech,” the AFGE said. The union pointed to Trump’s executive order barring law firm Perkins Coie, which represented the 2016 presidential campaign of Democrat Hillary Clinton, from doing business with federal contractors and denying its lawyers access to government officials and buildings. A judge blocked that order on Wednesday. The White House and DHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Two unions representing flight attendants and other airline workers joined AFGE in the lawsuit. Because of the sensitive nature of their jobs, TSA officers are not governed by the civil service system and do not have the same rights to unionize and collectively bargain over working conditions as most other federal employees. During former President Barack Obama’s administration, the TSA granted officers the ability to bargain over certain subjects, and former President Joe Biden’s administration expanded the scope of bargaining in 2021.<br/>
On a Saturday morning in May, 2020, Italian police officers caught two men pouring chemical waste into the sewers in the southern port city of Brindisi, near a small plane components factory. Five years on, that routine pollution case has spiralled into a wide-ranging judicial investigation into how thousands of flawed titanium and aluminium parts manufactured in Italy ended up in nearly 500 Boeing 787 jets still in use. The probe focuses on how tiny aero-part-maker Manufacturing Process Specification (MPS) allegedly defrauded clients by using cheaper and weaker metals to make floor fittings and other plane parts. Company executives deny the charge. A preliminary hearing on the case was due to open in Italy on Thursday, but was postponed at the last minute until May 15. Boeing has repeatedly said that there is no immediate safety risk. U.S. regulators, meanwhile, are preparing technical guidance for airlines to detect and replace any bad parts, without opting for the emergency orders reserved for the most pressing cases. But the precarious chain of events that led detectives to the alleged scam, including the surprise pollution find, raises broader questions about the failure by the aerospace industry's own voluntary audit system to detect sub-standard components. Detectives were already investigating MPS' owners over the bankruptcy of their previous firm. But after catching two MPS workers dumping polluting liquids next to the factory, police broadened their enquiries to the Brindisi firm's raw material purchases, three investigative sources said. With the help of whistleblowers, police found that MPS and its predecessor company had bought very small quantities of the prescribed metals required for 787 jets, including a tough titanium alloy, switching instead to cheaper and less resilient pure titanium, they said.<br/>
Vietnam's aviation regulator has proposed to recognise China's aircraft design certifications as equivalent to U.S. standards, facilitating the entry of jets from Chinese state-owned planemaker COMAC, according to documents seen by Reuters. COMAC has been intensifying its efforts to gain a market presence in Vietnam following meetings with the country's top leaders and enticing offers to its leading budget airline as part of a wider push to attract global buyers for its domestically-produced jets. But Vietnam is also attempting to reduce its trade surplus with the U.S. after President Donald Trump's announcement of reciprocal tariffs by confirming its intent to buy Boeing 737 MAX jets. "New aircraft like COMAC that are not yet certified by the FAA or EASA will encounter problems with current legal regulations when seeking to operate in Vietnam," according to a Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) document that referred to the U.S. and European aviation regulators. The CAAV has proposed to change the rules to allow for the import of Chinese-certified planes effective on April 30, according to a second document, though that would require a sign-off from Vietnam's top leaders.<br/>
Tariffs imposed by the U.S. and other countries in retaliation have prompted some business jet buyers to try to rush deliveries or add contract clauses to protect themselves from the duties, as the aviation sector braces for higher costs of planemaking materials, industry experts said. Canada and the European Union hit back on Wednesday with retaliatory duties against the United States after the White House introduced 25% tariffs on all imported steel and aluminum, metals, which are used to make planes. Tariffs imposed by the U.S. and other countries in retaliation have prompted some business jet buyers to try to rush deliveries or add contract clauses to protect themselves from the duties, as the aviation sector braces for higher costs of planemaking materials, industry experts said. Canada and the European Union hit back on Wednesday with retaliatory duties against the United States after the White House introduced 25% tariffs on all imported steel and aluminum, metals, which are used to make planes. Bombardier did not provide guidance this year due to the tariff threat, while some trade groups have flagged concerns that a drawn-out trade war would hit a globally integrated aerospace supply chain. Amanda Applegate, a partner at Soar Aviation Law, said she has seen some buyers of non-American private jets located outside the country add clauses to protect themselves from higher costs if their purchases get hit with tariffs. Others are trying to close deals quickly, before further tariffs hit. One European buyer of a U.S. private jet has been trying to rush a transaction, said Katie DeLuca, a partner at Florida-based law firm Harper Meyer.<br/>