The top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee said Monday he hopes to create a national commission to delve into the increase in deadly military aviation mishaps.
The new commission would review crashes over the past five years and make safety recommendations to Congress, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., said in a statement.
The proposal comes days after the fiery crash of an Air National Guard C-130 cargo plane in Georgia killed nine troops and became the most recent in a string of deadly mishaps over the past year.
“It is essential for our aviators and their families — as well as for our military’s ability to recruit, retain, and perform its mission — that Congress have an authoritative, objective, apolitical look at the causes of this problem so that we can figure out what is going wrong and what actions need to be taken.”
Smith plans to propose the investigative body as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act when the annual bill is debated by the committee on Wednesday.
A recent investigation by Military Times found military aviation mishaps have increased 40 percent since 2013.
But the Pentagon denied any crisis and said Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was not considering any department-wide review and was instead leaving investigations of individual incidents up to the services.
