Democrats from the House Committees on Transportation and Infrastructure and Homeland Security are demanding answers on the misuse of anti-drone systems that threatened the safety of Washington, D.C., airspace.
U.S. Rep. Rick Larson (D-WA), ranking member of the Transportation Committee, and Bennie Thompson, ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee, asked in a letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem why the U.S. Secret Service violated existing notification and operating requirements agreed upon with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) over the use of counter-unmanned aircraft systems (C-UAS).
“We are deeply concerned about the recent use of counter-unmanned aircraft systems (C-UAS) by the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) that resulted in false Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) alerts last month on several commercial passenger aircraft operating near Washington National Airport (DCA),” the Congressmen wrote. “[T]he FAA determined that despite its pre-deployment coordination with the USSS, the agency operated this C-UAS system outside of the agreed-upon requirements. Even more troubling, the FAA did not receive any notifications from USSS about this C-UAS activation, in violation of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Concept of Operations (CONOPS).”
Larson and Thompson asked the secretaries for answers about the USSS’s breach of protocol and to provide guidance on how the departments will work together in the future to prevent further incidents.
“The flying public cannot afford for these safety issues to continue and certainly should not be collateral damage due to your departments’ inability to coordinate effectively…security efforts cannot come at the expense of the safety of the flying public,” the lawmakers said.