An Act of Congress

This is the sixth post in a series on the two-decade resistance to ADS-B In, the technology the NTSB says would have prevented the Flight 5342 collision (part one: The Original Sin).

In 2012, Christine, Spencer, and I were hitting our stride as a family of three. We traveled frequently, visiting family, spending time with other adoptive families in New York City and Seattle, and feeding Spencer’s adrenaline cravings at Universal Orlando. Christine also achieved her goal of finishing a half-marathon, along with several other races.

Spencer still hadn’t stopped moving and was showing the first signs of the athlete he would become.

The letters ADS-B wouldn’t mean anything to any of us for well over a decade. And we certainly had no idea that during the previous year aviation industry lobbyists had successfully blocked the technology that would have prevented our journey together from ending prematurely a dozen years later.

Fortunately, ADS-B was already on the radar of aviation policymakers in Congress at that time. At the same time the aviation industry lobbyists were running “The ADS-B In Resistance Playbook” in the FAA’s rulemaking sandbox, language mandating ADS-B In was floating around drafts of the next big FAA reauthorization bill.

As early as July 2009, the week of Spencer’s first birthday, a bill was introduced in the Senate that would direct the FAA to initiate a rulemaking that would result in “all aircraft” being equipped with ADS-B In by 2018 — seven years before the Flight 5342 tragedy.

But in what is now a familiar pattern on Capitol Hill, there were 14 short-term extension bills before the Senate and House finally came together on the next major FAA bill.

Eventually, on February 14, 2012, President Obama signed the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, which included an ADS-B In mandate.

The two and a half years that passed since the initial Senate bill was introduced gave the aviation lobby time to run some successful plays against the mandate. The ADS-B In mandate scope changed from “all aircraft” to “capacity constrained airspace, at capacity constrained airports, or in any other airspace deemed appropriate by the Administrator.” The ADS-B In equipage deadline also moved from 2018 to 2020.

Nonetheless, a mandate was written into law in early 2012 that would require aircraft flying in busy airspace like, say, the area around Reagan National Airport, to be equipped with ADS-B In by 2020 — five years before the Flight 5342 tragedy.

Surely, that’s a losing hand that even our merry band of deep-pocketed aviation industry lobbyists can’t overcome, right?