WASHINGTON – National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy will tell lawmakers she is committed to getting approval for safety recommendations and vetting federal agencies.
The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee is holding a hearing Wednesday on President Joe Biden’s nomination of Homendy for a new term as chairman of the panel that investigates air, rail, maritime, pipeline and highway accidents.
“My most important job on site is to inform families about what is often the worst day of their lives. That’s why I fight so hard for NTSB safety recommendations,” Homendy will say, according to her written statement pledging to continue to serve. as a passionate advocate for improving road safety.”
Homendy was the board member on the scene last month for the Baltimore Bridge collapse and the Jan. 5 emergency on an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 that was triggered by a burst door panel.
Homendy, who has served on the board since 2018 and served as chair since August 2021, previously worked on transportation issues as a senior legislative staffer.
She will tell senators that the NTSB hired 71 employees in 2023 after hiring just 7 in 2017, bringing its headcount to 430. The NTSB has 2,200 domestic and 450 foreign cases annually across all modes of transportation, according to their statement, seen by Reuters.
Last month, Homendy criticized Boeing’s lack of cooperation in the doorstop investigation, including its failure to disclose the names of 25 door crew workers at the 737 factory in Renton, Washington. Following Homendy’s comments, Boeing announced the 25 names. Boeing denied that it had not cooperated.
She also called for action after a series of aviation safety near-misses and called on the Federal Aviation Administration to require all aircraft to be retrofitted with cockpit voice recorders that record 25 hours of data from the current two-hour loop.
Homendy has also pushed for new train safety measures after a train operated by Norfolk Southern derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, in February 2023.
Homendy had previously criticized the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for failing to ensure that driver assistance systems such as Tesla Autopilot or new self-driving vehicles were safe.
The NHTSA declined to adopt the NTSB’s recommendations, saying drivers are expected to “remain fully and continuously engaged in the driving task,” but in December urged Tesla to ground 2 million vehicles due to a lack of Autopilot protections Prevention of Driver Abuse.
Tesla said in December that it disagreed with NHTSA’s analysis but would provide an over-the-air software update that would “incorporate additional controls and warnings” to further encourage drivers to use Autopilot to meet their ongoing driving responsibilities.