Notam Improvement Act of 2023

Floor Speech

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Mr. DeSAULNIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I also thank my partner in this legislation and Chairman Graves for his positive comments.

As was mentioned, in 2017 an Air Canada plane at San Francisco International Airport got within 59 feet of crashing into four planes loaded with passengers, putting the lives of more than 1,000 people at risk, which would have been the greatest aviation disaster in American history. When the National Transportation Safety Board investigated, they found that the outdated NOTAM system was the largest part of the near disaster.

Since then, I and others have been working with the aviation industry, the FAA, the NTSB, and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to address the critical issues with NOTAMs. Updating them and making them more accessible to the people who use them is essential to the safety of the flying public and the confidence of the users.

Earlier this month, we learned what happens when there is an outage in the system: chaos and grounded flights.

In response to the Air Canada incident, I authored the Safe Landings Act, which would work to improve many aspects of aviation safety technology, including to the NOTAM system. With Members of both parties and the chair and ranking member, we have worked over the years to continue to hold the FAA accountable for the safety of passengers, crew, and aircraft.

In 2018, we included a requirement in the FAA reauthorization to speed up the modernization of the NOTAM system. Last year, more than 4 years after the provision passed into law, I led a letter with Ranking Member Larsen to the FAA asking why the system was still outdated.

The mass flight cancellations that resulted from the outage further emphasized the need to make rigorous and immediate updates to the NOTAMs, and brought public awareness to this critical system.

I am proud to have worked with my colleague and friend from Minnesota on this bill in a bipartisan manner and look forward to protecting the safety of the flying public. With the creation of this task force, this will be accomplished.

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