At a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) questioned Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth about a crash between a military helicopter and commercial plane.
00:07Secretary, an issue for me as a Kansan, but an issue for folks who fly out of Ronald Reagan National Airport.
00:17January 29th, Black Hawk, Army Black Hawk helicopter and a commercial airliner arriving at DCA from Wichita collided midair.
00:26I know you're aware of it.
00:28You were involved in responding on the night of the accident, January the 29th.
00:33It killed 67 individuals, many of them Kansans.
00:39I want to hear the confirmation from you.
00:44Since that flight, I ask, as did the Department of Transportation, the FAA,
00:52that the helicopter flights emanating from the Pentagon be put on pause.
00:59It's my understanding from information from the Army is that since January 29th,
01:04seven flights have taken off and landed at the Pentagon.
01:08Six of those flights occurred during periods of high volume at DCA.
01:13One of those aircraft caused two different commercial flights to abort landing on May the 1st.
01:18And since this latest incident, I understand that all flights have been halted.
01:22My question is, will you commit to maintaining that restriction on all non-essential rotary flights,
01:31including VIP transport from the Pentagon until the Department of Transportation,
01:37the FAA, determines the safe way in which that can be done, if there is a safe way?
01:42Senator, that was a very tragic incident, which can never happen again.
01:50We initiated an investigation immediately, worked directly with the Department of Transportation immediately.
01:54They've taken the lead on it.
01:55In real time at that moment, we even stood over maps and looked at routes to make sure we were ensuring that routes of Blackhawks were away from the flight path so that it didn't happen again.
02:08There are essential reasons why you may need to move along a corridor similar to that.
02:14But there is no authorization for VIP or convenience flights along that route.
02:21That is not the case and will not remain the case.
02:24You have our assurance that I'm working with Secretary Duffy very closely to make sure that the only flights that would be even in a modified path would be those that are necessary and authorized.
02:35And that ban, except for non, that ban on non-essential flights, including VIP transportation, remains in effect until Secretary Duffy reaches a conclusion, if it's possible to fly safely.
02:51We are in direct coordination with Secretary Duffy, and we take his recommendations very seriously and work together.
02:58And only where there's a dynamic and ongoing need for the Defense Department would we push back and try to figure out a middle ground.
03:04Thank you, and I compliment you on your response and engagement on January the 29th.
03:10I appreciate that very much, including the conversation you and I had that evening.
03:15There are so many national and international issues I want to talk to you about, but I also want to make certain that some things that no other member of this committee would ask about a circumstance that I've encountered in Kansas.
03:34And we've sought the Department of Defense's help, and we're fighting, in my view, we're fighting the bureaucracy.
03:42We have an Army Corps of Engineers Lake in Kansas.
03:45It's next to a city, a community called Council Grove.
03:48It's a county seat town of several thousand people.
03:52Their community depends upon the tourist traffic and usage of that lake.
03:56They had a manager, a ranger, at that lake.
04:01The Corps did.
04:03That ranger shifted to another lake.
04:06The hiring freeze prevented somebody from being hired to replace that person.
04:12The Secretary of the Army, I appreciate his cooperation, signed a waiver to allow the hiring.
04:17But now we have been told weeks to months for the Army Corps of Engineers to go through the hiring process to replace the person.
04:27And if I could get your attention or your staff's attention to see if there is not a faster way.
04:33This community says that the people who come to stay and visit the lake.
04:40So at the moment, the marina is threatened to be closed.
04:43There's no one to clean the latrines.
04:44No one can check the permits.
04:46So the lake is unusable.
04:49And summer is the season in which this community thrives based upon visitors to the lake.
04:56And I was told by the Army Corps of Engineers they had the person they wanted to hire.
05:01That person had applied, but the hiring freeze prohibited him from being hired.
05:05And they have people in mind to be the seasonal employees to do the seasonal work at the lake.
05:10But now the bureaucracy, my word, not anybody else's, I suppose, the bureaucracy of the Army Corps of Engineers delays this even weeks or months longer.
05:20The season, we've already missed Memorial Day.
05:24Can you help me?
05:24This is an issue we were made aware of almost in real time.
05:30And the Secretary of the Army was very responsive.
05:33He was.
05:34And I'm actually meeting, as it happens today, with the Director of the Army Corps of Engineers to, across the board, identify where this is happening and free it up.
05:42So it will get special attention.
05:43I appreciate that very much.
05:45The season is fast dissipating for the success of that community's economic well-being.
05:53It was reported that the Pentagon is or has diverted anti-drone technology intended for Ukraine to the U.S. Air Force in the Middle East.
06:04And the explanation for that was the safety and security of our military men and women in the Middle East depend upon this technology.
06:10I, and I assume no one can argue with the importance of protecting our military, was there a precipitating factor that caused that circumstance to be, that move to be necessary?
06:24And is there any plan to provide Ukraine with the necessary technology to replace that anti-drone, those anti-drone defenses?
06:34Senator, as you know, the Middle East is and remains a very dynamic theater.
06:38In the interest of putting America and Americans first, we're going to surge counter-UAS systems to our troops and our bases and our places first, if we think there's a potential for a threat.
06:51And considering the environment there right now, that has been and will continue to be a priority for us.
06:57What about the capability of resupplying or reinserting that technology into other places, including Ukraine?
07:05Is the capacity just not sufficient to do that?
07:08We would have to review the capacity, but it's one of the challenges of all the munitions that we've given to Ukraine over the, over these last three years is it's created some, some challenges in other places.
07:19I can imagine that many things are frustrating to you as they are to me, and one is our inability to have a supply chain sufficient to meet the global demands of the United States military in our country.
07:31And it is the, a focus that I heard you say in your testimony is one of yours, and we are, our safety is dependent upon a private sector supply chain necessary to meet all needs, in my view, including those of supporting Ukraine.
07:48The, I'm very supportive of the department's review of our withdrawal from Afghanistan, the United States withdrawal from Afghanistan.
08:04I think it was one of the saddest days in my experience as a member of Congress to see the circumstances and the nature of our departure and the loss of life that occurred in that effort.
08:18It is important that we do, when, when we're, when we're withdrawing, we do it in a way that protects our interests, and we did not do that in my view.
08:32It's also a poor signal to our adversaries that we're, we're, we are feckless, we're incapable of doing things well.
08:44It also is a message to our allies that we may not remain strong and keep our commitments to them.
08:53So, while I wouldn't debate the departure from Afghanistan, in my view, it's undebatable about the nature of the withdrawal and how damaging it was to our country.
09:08In the, in the midst of all that chaos, we abandoned thousands of Afghans who worked side by side with Kansas soldiers.
09:17I hear about it frequently, and I heard more about it back at the time, about who we left behind that were allies and friends of those who served.
09:28Can you help fix the problem of those who are in limbo, who were our, our Afghan allies, and their status either here in the United States or their status waiting to come to the United States?
09:41What should be our policy?
09:43Senator, our doors have been opening.
09:45I'll just take a minute to encourage everybody to stay within the five minutes because we have a number of senators here.
