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Doug Lane, a Rhode Island resident whose wife and 16-year-old son died when an American Airlines plane collided with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter in January 2025, has spent the past year asking Congress to mandate safety changes.
It’s a way for him to connect with other grieving families and take back some control after the crash left him feeling “powerless.”
It’s also a way to “hopefully, find some good that wouldn’t have been there otherwise,” Lane said. “I’ll never assemble enough good to offset the bad, but what I can produce brings a little comfort.”
Lane and several of the other families who lost loved ones in the collision have been advocating for safety reforms that would require aircraft to operate with surveillance technology meant to make it easier for aircraft to spot one another in the airspace. The use of that technology would have given the American Airlines pilots nearly a minute to respond before the collision, the National Transportation Safety Board said in its final report released this month.
Washington lawmakers have been separately focused on that same work, introducing substantially different bills in the Senate and House to implement safety recommendations laid out by the NTSB in response to the deadly crash.
The competing bills take different approaches to the surveillance technology, and, after one was voted down this week, the other has drawn intense criticism from the NTSB and disappointed families who lost loved ones.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., ranking member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, last year joined with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to introduce the ROTOR Act, or Rotorcraft Operations Transparency and Oversight Reform Act.
The bill focused on technology known as Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast, or ADS-B.
ADS-B Out, which broadcasts information about an aircraft’s location, altitude and other data to nearby aircraft and air traffic controllers, is already required for most aircraft in busy airspace. ADS-B In, the system that allows aircraft to receive data from other nearby aircraft, is not mandated. The NTSB has been recommending requirements for such systems since 2008.
The ROTOR Act would require all aircraft mandated to use ADS-B Out in busier airspace to also use ADS-B In. It unanimously passed the Senate in December but failed to pass the House this week.
Cantwell on Wednesday called on House Speaker Mike Johnson to schedule another vote on the bill, arguing that some members missed the vote because of severe snowstorms.
Meanwhile, in the House of Representatives, Reps. Rick Larsen, D-Everett, and Adam Smith, D-Bellevue, this month introduced their own aviation safety bill, called the ALERT Act, or Airspace Location and Enhanced Risk Transparency Act.
The bill is sponsored by Rep Sam Graves, R-Mo., chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee; Larsen, the ranking member of the same committee; Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., chairman of the Armed Services Committee; and Smith, ranking member of that committee.
Its sponsors say the bill responds to all 50 of the NTSB’s recommendations and provides a “thorough and holistic legislative solution to improve U.S. aviation safety,” according to a news release announcing the new bill.
In a speech on the House floor this week, Graves said the Senate’s ROTOR Act had an “overly prescriptive approach” to a specific technology, referring to the ADS-B In requirements, while the House bill offered a “performance-based and technology agnostic” approach. Graves argues the House bill avoids those issues while guarding against midair collisions.
The NTSB, which has publicly supported the ROTOR Act, voiced strong opposition to the ALERT Act. In a letter Thursday, the NTSB said it could not support the House bill because it did not fully implement the board's recommendations following the deadly crash.
The House bill requires “covered aircraft” to “be equipped with technology capable of receiving ADS-B In transmissions,” the safety board wrote in an analysis of the legislation. “There is a big difference between mandating ADS-B In be operational and requiring that technology be capable of receiving” it.
In the days since the vote, NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy has posted scathing critiques of the ALERT Act. In one, she wrote that the bill “bears the marks of negotiation among interest groups rather than a real commitment to public and aviation safety.”
In another, she asked, “How many more people have to die before meaningful action is taken to prevent tragedy?”
On Friday, Larsen said in a prepared statement, “We are working with safety experts and other key stakeholders to incorporate feedback and ensure our bill executes as intended before we move forward.”
“We all share the same goal — which is improve airspace safety and protect the public from future accidents like this one,” he said.
Graves, Smith and Rogers could not be reached for comment Friday. In a statement earlier this week, Graves pledged to move quickly to get the ALERT Act to markup, a process where lawmakers debate and amend legislation.
For Lane, this week's vote striking down the ROTOR Act felt like a “gut punch.”
The families who lost loved ones when the Army helicopter collided with an American Airlines regional jet flying from Wichita, Kan., to Washington, D.C., had been involved in crafting that legislation from the beginning and thought it was a “no-brainer” that it would pass, he said. Now, it feels like they are facing a “governmentwide and industrywide gravitational pull to the status quo.”
In December, the families were similarly caught off guard when a last-minute provision in the National Defense Authorization Act allowed military aircraft to operate in the D.C. airspace without broadcasting their location, reversing an agreement struck between regulators and the Department of Defense. The ALERT Act includes a section to repeal that provision.
The frenzy around the defense bill helped bring the ROTOR Act to a vote quickly, Lane said. He is optimistic now that the family advocacy group will still succeed, whether that means bringing the ROTOR Act back to the floor or working with lawmakers on the ALERT Act.
Lane said he and his 13-year-old son, Milo, have coped with their grief by staying busy. Milo has stuck to his routine with school and wrestling, while Lane has focused on safety reforms, keeping up with work and navigating life as a single parent.
Lane’s wife, Christine, and their 16-year-old son, Spencer, were traveling back to Rhode Island after attending a figure skating camp in Wichita when the plane collided with the helicopter.
Spencer was on track to join the U.S. national team, Lane said. In the first few months after the crash, Lane said it was hard to watch the sport, knowing which competitions his son was supposed to be at.
Now, more than a year later, he has “turned a corner.” Instead of thinking about what should have been, Lane’s able to think about how his son would have reacted. As he watched the U.S. figure skating national competition in January, he said, “I could just picture Spencer beaming.”
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