House Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley is demanding information about the Obama administration’s oversight of foreign nationals who receive flight training in the United States.
In a letter to the Department of Homeland Security, Grassley, R-Iowa, said an Oct. 11 airplane crash in East Hartford, Conn., has raised his suspicions about flight school training of the pilot, Feras M. Freitekh, a Jordanian national living in the United States.
The National Transportation Safety Board has initially determined that Freitekh crashed the plane intentionally. It went down near the gates of aerospace manufacturer Pratt and Whitney, which produces military aircraft engines.
“Ever since the September 11 terrorist attacks, oversight of flight training by foreign nationals has been an issue of enormous national security importance,” Grassley wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson. “Concerns about the potential use of small aircraft in particular have been increasing. Numerous troubling incidents over the years have kept these concerns alive.”
Grassley asked Johnson to respond to ten questions about foreign national access to flight training, including whether those on the “no fly” list can obtain fight instruction.
