Hinson reacts to plane-helicopter crash near Washington, says now not the time to politicize tragedy

WASHINGTON — North-central Iowa congresswoman Ashley Hinson is reacting to the collision between an American Airlines jet with an Army helicopter while landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington Wednesday night, saying that the incident shouldn’t be politicized.

Hinson says she’s continuing to monitor the situation and has a tremendous amount of faith in the highly-skilled first responders and law enforcement officials who are on the ground and out on the river as part of the recovery effort.  “My heart is breaking for the victims of this crash, their loved ones, and the first responders at the scene of this tragedy who have a terrible job ahead of them. We need to let the professionals do that job. We need to make sure they have the resources and the tools that they need to respond and investigate, and it is important that we really understand all the facts in this situation before we jump to conclusions about what happened.”

Congress squabbled last year about adding flights to Reagan National, a federally-owned airport, with some saying lawmakers brushed off safety warnings amid midflight near-misses. Some reporters after the crash say the only reason Reagan National remains open is because members of Congress don’t want to deal with flying into Dulles, which is 30 miles away from the capitol as opposed to just six from Reagan.

Hinson says reporters shouldn’t be making this a political issue right after the incident.  “Nobody should be politicizing this tragedy, so shame on anybody who is jumping to conclusions here. We did have a conversation of course over slots last year. I actually voted against that first amendment on the FAA Reauthorization Bill, and I do share those concerns about the traffic at DCA. What I think is important coming out of this tragedy is I’m going to be working to make sure the FAA has all they need to ensure a safe flying experience and that we make that guarantee to passengers in this country.”

Hinson says at this point there’s a lot of questions and it’s important that all the facts are gathered so this type of tragedy doesn’t happen again.