OPB4%
Oregon lawmakers seek airspace safety updates after slackline ensnared helicopter in fatal crash 40%
By Antonio Sierra34%
7/15/2026, 11:55:42 PM
Keywords: Northwest Politics, Public Safety
BS Summary: This article contains 17 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Authority, Framing Effect, and Optimism Bias, with Appeal to Emotion as the most egregious example at 25.3% saturation with 123 hits. Analysis detected 722 faulty-reasoning hits from 486 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 45.2% and a BS Rank of 40% (13,139 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 60.00% of the article peer group.
Six months after a helicopter crashed into a slackline in an Arizona canyon, killing four Eastern Oregon residents from the same family, a bipartisan group of Oregon lawmakers is backing a bill to update airspace safety precautions.
U.S.
Sen.
Jeff Merkley is introducing the McCarty and Heideman Air Safety Enhancement Act, a bill that would direct the Federal Aviation Administration to review and update its policies for low-altitude airspace safety.
The bill puts specific focus on high-altitude slacklining, a sport where people walk across an anchored set of narrow webbing, like a tightrope.
Merkley said he named the legislation after the families who lost loved ones in a Jan. 2 helicopter crash in Pinal County, Arizona.
On that day, 59-year-old pilot David McCarty flew with his three nieces, Rachel McCarty, 23, Faith McCarty, 21, and Katelyn Heideman, 21.
The helicopter collided with a slackline suspended 600 feet in the air and crashed to the ground.
A preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board states that a second helicopter almost collided with the slackline later that day.
The family’s roots are in Umatilla County.
The deaths hit especially hard in Hermiston, and in Echo, a tight-knit community of 600 people, where the McCarty sisters attended school.
Merkley credited their sister, Elizabeth Gallup, with advocating for change following her family’s tragedy.
He said she’s traveled to Washington, D.C. on behalf of the effort.
“This is a citizen advocate taking family tragedy and preventing it from happening to someone else, and that’s really powerful,” he said.
Gallup said in a social media message to OPB that the family is committed to getting the bill across the finish line.
“It is a crucial and urgent step towards making the airspace safer for pilots, passengers, cargo, and anyone using the airspace for work or recreation,” she wrote.
A coalition of aviation associations has also lately urged the FAA to review its rules for low-altitude “temporary obstructions,” specifically citing the Arizona helicopter crash.
In a Congress often defined by gridlock, Merkley said he is optimistic the bill could pass before lawmakers wrap up business in January.
He’s found support in the U.S.
House of Representatives — with Springfield Democrat Val Hoyle, and Ontario Republican Cliff Bentz, whose district covers Umatilla County.
“As we look ahead, it is my hope that meaningful changes can be made to ensure a tragedy like this is never repeated,” Bentz said in a statement Wednesday.
Merkley said Wednesday he was still trying to find a Republican senator to co-sponsor the bill.
In a press release the next day, he announced Utah Republican Sen.
John Curtis was joining him in sponsoring the bill.
*Corrections: This story has been updated to correct the number of months that have passed since the fatal crash, and that Rep.
Hoyle is from Springfield.
OPB regrets the errors.
*
Speakers
6speakers59%attributed speech201writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Selected voice
100%flagged-word coverageElizabeth Gallup
49 attributed words17% of attributed speech69% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Analysis
Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.