Faa Reauthorization Act of 2018
Floor Speech
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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his leadership on that and his help. I wish the FAA had listened. And I thank Mr. Shuster and the staffs on both sides of the committee for including this amendment with others that need to be part of this action.
It was about 2 years ago that the largest, most deadly crash of a commercial balloon in American history occurred just south of Austin, near Lockhart and Maxwell, Texas. It was, in fact, and remains the largest aviation disaster of any type in this decade. When that morning, that Saturday morning ended, this was all that was left, along with the bodies of the victims of this.
The Federal Aviation Administration had been asked, prior to this incident, by the National Transportation Safety Board, to take a closer look and come up with reasonable regulations for the commercial balloon industry. The FAA failed to do that. Since this accident, the Federal Aviation Administration has been asked, once again, by the National Transportation Safety Board to act on this matter, and the FAA has again failed.
The families of the victims launched a petition on their own to express their concern about this. I have joined them, others have joined them, in asking for action, and it is clear that only legislative action by us will address this problem.
I am hopeful that, with the passage of this amendment, which is narrow, which is bipartisan, and is directed only to assuring that individuals who are flying these--lifting off in these balloons are medically fit to do so. Had that been in place, I believe that this incident would never have happened.
So the grief, the horror, that these families experienced, many of them want to channel it into seeing that no other family faces a similar crisis. This is an incident that had a widespread effect. I talked with the owner of the property where the crash occurred. There was a giant prayer circle around the Caldwell County Courthouse of concern of many people in the county for what happened here.
I just want to thank my colleagues for incorporating this amendment in because I think it will help save lives in the future.
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