Acting FAA administrator Chris Rocheleau on Thursday announced new safety measures for Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (KDCA) in the wake of January’s fatal midair collision between a U.S. Army helicopter and commercial passenger jet, which killed 67 people.
Speaking during a Senate hearing on the National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) preliminary report on the incident, Rocheleau revealed that “effective today,” the FAA will require any aircraft traveling in KDCA Class B airspace to turn on Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) Out transponders.
The report, released earlier this month, urged “immediate action” to prevent a similar accident, to which the FAA responded by barring nonessential helicopter operations at the airport…