Notam Improvement Act of 2023

Floor Speech

I thank my good friend, Representative Stauber, for his work on the bill.

I am really grateful to be here once again to support H.R. 346, the NOTAM Improvement Act, which we introduced together and worked on and will continue to work on together.

The Notice to Air Mission System is an essential part of our aviation infrastructure as it provides critical real-time flight safety information, including potential hazards to pilots, flight dispatchers, and other airspace users.

In 2017, an Air Canada plane at San Francisco International Airport preparing to land flew within 59 feet of four fully loaded planes, narrowly avoiding an unimaginable disaster. It would have been the greatest aviation disaster in American history. If it wasn't for the quick thinking of a couple of United Airlines pilots who saw him approaching inappropriately, we would have had that disaster. The National Transportation Safety Board investigation found that the outdated NOTAM system was a significant part of the problem.

The importance of this work was further emphasized when earlier this year in January, U.S. airspace came to a standstill when the Federal Aviation Administration grounded all airline domestic departures due to an outage of the system.

Although the FAA worked to quickly solve the problem and lift all of the domestic flight stops, airlines and passengers faced the cascading effects of mass delays and cancellations for hours.

The NOTAM outage also exposed significant vulnerabilities in the FAA's legacy IT infrastructure and underscored the need for Congress to take decisive action to quickly modernize these critical safety systems that flight crews and airline passengers depend on.

To help strengthen the integrity of the NOTAM system, this bipartisan bill directs the FAA to create a task force on NOTAM improvement to:

Identify best practices to make sure that critical flight information is disseminated to pilots in a way that optimizes review and retention; and

Develop recommendations to ensure the stability, resiliency, and cybersecurity of the NOTAM system.

This task force will consist of key aviation stakeholders including: airline pilots, air traffic controllers, aircraft dispatchers, air carriers, and aviation safety and computer system experts.

It also requires the FAA to complete its NOTAM modernization efforts and do other IT system upgrades by the fall of 2024.

As the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee continues to work on the upcoming FAA reauthorization bill, we will build upon the 2018 law and implement any necessary improvements to safeguard U.S. airspace from cascading system outages.

The task force created under this bill will play an important role in the FAA's ongoing NOTAM modernization initiative to ensure pilots, flight crews, and other airspace users receive NOTAMs that are timely, relevant, and accurate.

I am very proud to have worked with Representative Stauber on the NOTAM Improvement Act to protect the safety of the flying public. At a time when there is much disagreement within our parties, I am glad that we worked together in a bipartisan manner to prioritize aviation safety.

I am also grateful that our Senate colleagues recognized the importance of this issue and worked quickly to pass this bipartisan bill.

Our unwavering bipartisan commitment to aviation safety continues to be a priority for Congress and the FAA.

As we enter what is expected to be a busy summer travel season, H.R. 346 will help put us on course to pursue best practices that bolster safety, prevent future disruptions, and allow for pilots, air traffic controllers, crews, and customers to be safe and feel confident in the technology and in the U.S. aviation system.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DeSAULNIER. Mr. Speaker, once again I will say how fulfilling this has been and how much work we still have to do, but I know we will work in partnership to make sure that we fulfill a long history in this country of aviation safety and make sure it gets even better.

Mr. Speaker, I have no other Members on my side to speak, and I yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source