Chair Cantwell Touts Committee’s Progress on Aviation Safety

U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, delivered the following remarks at today's subcommittee hearing on the Federal Aviation Administration's air traffic systems, facilities and technical air traffic workforce, in light of increasing air travel demand. Read the witness testimonies and watch the hearing here. Read Senator Cantwell's full transcript, including witnesses questions here.

Chair Cantwell's Opening Remarks As Delivered: VIDEO

Thank you, Senator Duckworth, for having this important hearing this morning on aviation safety.

Like you, I'm saddened and surprised to hear of Administrator Whitaker's decision to step down in January of 2025.

I know this: If you want to be the leader in aviation, you have to be the leader in aviation safety. I think Administrator Whitaker was living by that motto. I hope that the next administrator will live by it as well.

The next administrator needs to be ready on day one to continue the job of restoring the FAA's safety culture and providing real oversight of the aviation sector.

This Committee has done good work looking at not just what manufacturers must do, but making sure that the FAA does its oversight role and responsibility.

We look forward to this opportunity to continue the work with Chairman soon to be Cruz in January, and with you, Senator Duckworth, on the very, very important technology challenges that we face in the FAA.

Last year's outage of the FAA's NOTAM system underscored that the FAA, like airlines, must have a backup system and redundancy. We need to have the FAA meet the same standards.

I want again to thank you for your leadership during the 118^th Congress, Senator Duckworth, because serving as an aviator yourself, and certainly the intelligence that you bring to these technology issues, have helped us solve many issues.

Getting aviation infrastructure right-whether it is the air traffic controller system, sustainable aviation fuel, NextGen or important issues like thermal plastics and composites-all of these are about winning the next 100 years of aviation.

Our country has been blessed to be leaders in aviation, but we can see the competition coming, and we can see the challenges of implementing safety.

According to the Airports Council-North America, every dollar invested in aviation infrastructure yields $2.5 dollars in [economic] growth. And importantly, it helps us stay on top of those aviation safety priorities.

We have been spurred to action by the horrible crashes that we witnessed with both Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 and the Lion Air flight 610, which pushed us to pass ACSAA in the aftermath of that.

The Alaska Airlines 1282 flight [door plug] blow out renewed the focus even more on production quality.

On January 12^th, several days after the incident, the FAA Administrator chose to strengthen its oversight of manufacturing and initiated an audit. Four days [after], Senator Duckworth and I … [opposed Boeing's petition for a waiver] … on the 737 MAX-7's deicing system, Boeing withdrew that and pledged to work on fixing that, and we are still seeing this play out.

Today's hearing marks the 12^th hearing that our Committee has had, building on seven hearings in the 117^th Congress. So it's safe to say, with Senator Cruz's remarks, that we will continue to be laser focused on aviation safety and technology.

NTSB Chair Homendy and others testified on the spike of near-misses and close-calls that we were seeing. Chair Homendy has been before the Committee several times to discuss the continued investigation of the Alaska Airlines door plug blowout.

We brought in airline CEOs, labor leaders and talked about the success that we've seen, and what we need to do to keep going past our COVID-19 pandemic considerations.

We put our money where our mouth is and set the table for a FAA Reauthorization Law, and all of the Committee worked very diligently to get that over the goal line. Again, want to thank Senator Cruz for his work on that.

The FAA law reauthorized both the FAA and NTSB for an additional five years to help keep safe 3 million daily passengers in the United States. It gives the FAA the resources it needs and makes sure that the nation's aviation safety regulator does set that gold standard.

The law provides NTSB, the nation's safety watchdog, with the highest funding authorization it has received to make sure that we hire the investigators needed to complete their mission.

And the reauthorization invests in the wellbeing of our aviation workforce, giving them new tools, training, and platforms to thrive.

Senator Duckworth, again, thank you for holding this hearing this morning. I look forward to your continued leadership in the very important role of aviation technology advancement and meeting our safety standards. Thank you.

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