Before he joined Congress, freshman Rep. Tom Barrett flew helicopters for the U.S. Army for 21 years. He now wants to use that experience to pressure the Pentagon to use better technology to prevent midair collisions between a military chopper and a commercial airline like the one last month that killed 67 above the the nation's capital.

"I've got a lot of thoughts about what could have been done differently to prevent this from happening," he told the Just the News, No Noise TV show this week. "But as we stand right now, of course, this is our largest tragedy in over a decade, in civilian airspace. We want to keep Americans safe, and I think this is the first step in doing that."

Barrett, R-Mich., is specifically working with the Defense Department to analyze the possibilities of equipping military aircraft with the same traffic collision avoidance equipment that civilian aircraft use. He plans to introduce legislation as early as this week to codify the solution.

He says that systems now used on military aircraft are incompatible with the technology used by commercial airlines.  

"It requires both aircraft to have that system installed for it to operate properly, and we know that on the night that this happened, the Army helicopter did not have that equipment on board, because it's not necessary for combat operations," Barrett said.

Investigators are still trying to determine what exactly happened the night of Jan. 29 when an American Airlines flight coming into Reagan Washington National Airport collided with an Army Blackhawk helicopter, sending both craft plummeting into an icy Potomac River below.

Much of the probe so far has focused on the plane and helicopter's designated airspace and equipment that might have prevented the tragedy. 

Another collision nearly occurred Wednesday at Chicago's Midway Airport between a Southwest Airlines jet and a private business jet, but was prevented when the incoming Southwest plane performed a go around maneuver to avoid the second plane that was still taxiing on the runway. 

"So much of our military training flights are done in civilian airspace, that I think it makes sense to really explore whether or not we can install this on military equipment, whether it would open up a vulnerability for our adversaries to exploit that in some way, we certainly have to be mindful and guarded against that."

Before becoming a member of House, Barrett spent 21 years in the U.S. Army where he served as a helicopter pilot.  

"I'm very hopeful that we can get something around this done to ensure the safety of everybody, both on the civilian side of this, as well as the military side, to make sure that we can have interoperability between military and civilian equipment operating in our nation's air space," he said. "This is a horrible tragedy."