Sen. Ted Cruz, who leads the panel overseeing the Federal Aviation Administration, said Friday it’s a “reasonable inference” that the helicopter pilot involved in the deadly collision with a commercial flight earlier this week may have been looking at the wrong plane — though he stressed that nothing has been confirmed.
Speaking at length on his podcast about the incident that killed 67 people — and following his Thursday briefing by the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board — the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee chair said that air traffic control asked the helicopter for visual confirmation of the airplane, which the helicopter pilot gave. But instead of going behind the plane as instructed by controllers, it appeared to go in front of it.
“This strikes me as a reasonable inference that the helicopter pilot looks and says, ‘Yes, I see the plane,’ and perhaps didn’t realize it was a different plane that was landing,” Cruz, a Texas Republican, told podcast listeners. “NTSB and FAA told me, right now, we don’t know. That’s not confirmed. That’s a theory people are saying elsewhere.”
“We shouldn’t get ahead of the evidence,” Cruz added.
Just a few weeks into his tenure as committee chair, Cruz is being tasked with helping to oversee the congressional response and investigation into the worst aviation tragedy in nearly two decades. The job could become politically dicey.
President Donald Trump is suggesting the disaster is attributable to diversity, equity and inclusion policies put in place by the Biden administration, something Cruz might be forced to respond to directly in the coming days and weeks. For the time being, Cruz has refused to address those speculations one way or the other.
Cruz is also going to be teaming up with Sen. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican who has just been named the ranking member of the Commerce Subcommittee on Aviation. The plane that crashed on Wednesday evening was en route from Wichita, giving Moran a unique stake in the congressional action to come.
Moran has said he expects his committee to follow up on the NTSB’s findings and “pursue whatever legislative changes may be necessary to further protect the traveling public.”
Cruz said he expects significant policy discussions to come surrounding the volume of helicopter traffic around Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, the airspace around which the collision occurred, and will hold a follow-up bipartisan briefing with Commerce Committee members in the days ahead.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this report misstated what day the plane crashed. It was Wednesday night.
