WASHINGTON, Dec 11 – The chair of the Senate Commerce Committee ‍and the panel’s top Democrat on Thursday pushed to revise an annual defense bill ‌to bolster military ‌helicopter safety after a fatal American Airlines collision with an Army Black Hawk killed 67 people in January near Reagan ‍Washington National Airport.

Republican Senator Ted Cruz and Democrat Maria ‍Cantwell filed an amendment to strike the military helicopter language in the defense bill and ‍insert tougher requirements.

“We owe it to the families to ‍put ‍into law actual safety improvements, not ⁠give the Department of ‌Defense bigger loopholes to exploit,” the senators said in a joint statement.

(Reporting by David Shepardson in ⁠Washington)

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