WASHINGTON – In a recent development, Republican Senator Ted Cruz has called for new restrictions on military flights to be implemented before the current government funding expires at the end of next month. This move aims to avert disasters like the tragic midair collision over Washington, D.C. earlier this year, which claimed 67 lives.

Senators Cruz and Maria Cantwell, a Democrat, addressed the media on Monday alongside some of the victims’ families. They voiced their opposition to specific clauses in a significant defense bill anticipated to be approved this week. These clauses would permit military aircraft to operate without broadcasting their precise locations, similar to their operations prior to the January 29 crash involving an airliner and an Army helicopter.

While Cruz and Cantwell are pushing for the removal of these provisions, doing so would require the bill to be returned to the House, potentially delaying soldier pay raises and other vital measures. Given the low probability of such changes, Cruz has indicated he will pursue efforts to reinstate these flight restrictions through a government funding bill in January.

“I am advocating for a vote on the ROTOR Act, included in any appropriations measure before the current continuing resolution concludes next month,” Cruz stated. ROTOR stands for “Rotorcraft Operations Transparency and Oversight Reform.”

The defense bill’s current provisions have reignited discussions about air safety in the vicinity of the nation’s capital. Prior to the January collision, military helicopters frequently navigated the congested airspace around Washington, D.C. without utilizing the Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast (ADS-B) system, which is crucial for broadcasting their locations. Since March, the Federal Aviation Administration has mandated all aircraft to comply with this requirement.

National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy, senators, airlines and key transportation unions all sharply criticized the new helicopter safety provisions in the defense bill when they came to light.

Cruz said the defense bill provision “was airdropped in at at the last moment,” noting it would unwind actions taken by President Donald Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to make the airspace around D.C. safer.

“The special carve-out was exactly what caused the January 29th crash that claimed 67 lives,” Cruz said.

The families of the crash victims said that bill would weaken safeguards and send aviation safety backwards. Amy Hunter, who lost her cousin and his family in the crash, said Trump and his administration had worked to implement safety recommendations from the NTSB, but warned those reforms could be lost in the military policy bill.

Hunter said it “now threatens to undo everything, all the progress that was already made, and it will compromise the safety around Reagan National Airport.”

The NTSB won’t release its final report on the cause of the crash until sometime next year, but investigators have already raised a number of key concerns about the 85 near misses around Ronald Reagan National Airport in the years before the crash and the helicopter route that allowed Black Hawks to fly dangerously close to planes landing at the airport’s secondary runway.

The bill Cruz and Cantwell proposed to require all aircraft to broadcast their locations has broad support from the White House, the FAA, NTSB and the victims’ families.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said he hoped the air safety legislation Cruz and Cantwell introduced last summer, called the ROTOR Act, could be added to the funding package that the Senate may start considering this week ahead of the holiday break.

“I think we’ll get there on that, but it would be really hard to undo the defense authorization bill now,” Thune, R-S.D., said.

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This story has been updated to delete erroneous reporting that Sen. Ted Cruz was threatening another federal government shutdown if new restrictions on military flights are not approved by the end of January. Rather, Cruz said he’ll seek action to reimpose the restrictions as part of a government funding package. AP members must NOT use earlier versions of US–Aviation Safety.