US to upgrade ‘broken’ air traffic system after American Airlines jet-army helicopter crash
Trump urges Congress to pass ‘a single bill’ to provide a better control system, calls current technology ‘obsolete’
“We’re all going to sit down and do a great computerised system for our control towers, brand new, not pieced together,” Trump said at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington.
The president said he would raise the issue with Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
“We have to get together” to pass “a single bill” to provide a better control system, the president said.
Trump said the US had spent “billions and billions of dollars trying to renovate an old, broken system, instead of just saying, cut it loose and let’s spend less money and build a great system.” The president said the work could be done by “two or three companies,” instead of what he said was a complex arrangement assembled by dozens of companies.
Trump said the US had fallen behind other nations which had “unbelievable air controller systems,” including features he suggested would have alerted air traffic controllers to the impending disaster outside Washington last week when an army Black Hawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines Group Inc. regional jet, killing 67 people – all of those aboard both crafts.
“It would have just never happened if we had the right equipment,” Trump said.
