The House on Friday unveiled a defense bill that pumps billions of dollars into solving what it deems a military aviation crisis just a day after the Pentagon denied such a crisis exists.
About $39 billion of the proposed $717 billion National Defense Authorization Act would be spent on addressing the recent surge in crashes that have killed 25 troops this year by getting more aircraft fixed and flying, according to the House Armed Services Committee.
Details of the annual bill were released after the most recent crash this week of an aging Air National Guard C-130 in Georgia that killed nine Guardsmen.
“Across the bill there is a significant effort to try to look at many of the various causes and devote both the resources and oversight to making sure that the department is focused on those things,” a senior committee aide said during a background briefing on the legislation.
The Pentagon on Thursday denied any systemic problem is causing a 40 percent rise in aviation mishaps since 2013, according to an investigation by Military Times.
“This is not a crisis, but it is a crisis for each of these families and we owe them a full investigation, and to understand what’s going on,” said Dana White, the chief Pentagon spokesperson. “But these are across services, and these are different individuals and different circumstances.”
The NDAA bill attempts to push more resources into training and combat, the aide said. It includes a total of $2.8 billion in spare airplane parts for the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps.
It also calls for a boost of $24 million to get service members more flying hours so they have more experience.
“By allowing more time in the air, this increase will help reverse the tragic trend of military aviation accidents,” according to a committee summary of the bill.
The House Armed Services Committee is set for a hearing on the NDAA Wednesday and the legislation has a long road to becoming law.
The House must vote to approve the bill. Meanwhile, the Senate Armed Services Committee is working on its own version of the NDAA this month. Eventually both versions must be reconciled in a final conference report that will go before Congress and President Trump.
