U.S. Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Mark Warner (D-VA), Ed Markey (D-MA) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) re-introduced legislation that would improve the Federal Aviation Administration’s safety oversight and its ability to identify and address safety concerns.
The FAA SMS Compliance Review Act of 2026, would direct the FAA to establish and independent expert review panel to make recommendations on a comprehensive FAA safety management system (SMS) that would predict, manage and mitigate safety risks across the agency. The legislation comes on the heels of the preliminary report of the January 29, 2025 mid-air collision near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and a regional commercial jet. That accident claimed the lives of 67 people. On Tuesday, the National Transportation Safety Board found that the FAA failed to act in response to safety data pointing to more than 15,000 near miss accidents between helicopter and commercial fixed-wing aircraft at DCA during the three years leading up to the tragedy.
“From the deadly DCA crash to the spike in near misses and air traffic control equipment outages, there are too many alarm bells ringing that we must strengthen safety in our aviation system,” Duckworth said. “It’s the FAA’s job to keep the flying public safe, so it only makes sense that the FAA should be held to the highest standard of safety when it comes to its own policies and procedures. Our bill seeks to ensure that the FAA is optimizing effectiveness in its work to strengthen aviation safety and protect passengers and crew.”
The report has spurred enhanced scrutiny of the FAA’s SMS and whether individual SMS at FAA offices are effective in identifying and correcting safety issues. The Senators said their legislation would create an expert review panel to look into the FAA’s agency-wide SMS and would direct the panel to evaluate the efficacy of FAA employee voluntary safety reporting systems – a subject highlighted by air traffic controllers during the NTSB’s investigative hearings on the January 29 mid-air collision.
“The FAA must ensure that its own safety management system (SMS) is working well if the agency is going to properly oversee the SMSs of those it regulates,” Cantwell said. “Following years of weak oversight which contributed to the DCA mid-air collision, the Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 door-plug incident, and the Ethiopian and Indonesian crashes, it’s past time to bring in outside safety experts to examine and recommend how FAA can create an agency-wide SMS to be most effective in identifying and correcting safety risks to prevent future incidents.”
The legislation is supported by a number of groups and advocacy organizations including the Families of Flight 5342; Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association; the National Air Traffic Controllers Association; Air Line Pilots Association, International; and others.