WASHINGTON, April 10 (Reuters) - National Transportation

Safety Board chair Jennifer Homendy will tell lawmakers she is

committed to winning approval of safety recommendations and

scrutinizing federal agencies.

The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee is holding a hearing

Wednesday on President Joe Biden's nomination of Homendy to

serve a new term heading the board that investigates air, rail,

marine, pipeline and highway accidents.

"On scene, my most important duty is to brief the families

on what is often the worst day of their lives. It's why I fight

so hard for NTSB safety recommendations," Homendy will say,

according to her written testimony pledging to continue serving

"as a fierce advocate for improving transportation safety."

Homendy was the on-scene board member for last month's

Baltimore bridge collapse and the Jan. 5 Alaska Airlines

Boeing 737 MAX 9 mid-air emergency prompted by a door

panel blowout.

Homendy, who has served on the board since 2018 and has been

chair since August 2021, previously was a senior legislative

staffer working on transportation issues.

She will tell senators the NTSB in 2023 hired 71 people

after hiring just 7 in 2017 boosting its headcount to 430. The

NTSB has 2,200 domestic and 450 foreign cases annually in every

mode of transportation, her testimony seen by Reuters says.

Last month, Homendy criticized what she termed Boeing's ( BA ) lack

of cooperation in the door plug probe including failing to

disclose the names of 25 workers on the door crew at the 737

factory in Renton, Washington. After Homendy's comments, Boeing ( BA )

provided the 25 names. Boeing ( BA ) denied failing to cooperate.

She has also urged action after a series of near-miss

aviation safety incidents, and urged the Federal Aviation

Administration to mandate retrofitting all planes with cockpit

voice-recorders capturing 25 hours of data from the current

two-hour loop.

Homendy has also pushed for new train safety measures after

the February 2023 derailment of a Norfolk Southern ( NSC )

operated train in East Palestine, Ohio.

Homendy previously criticized the National Highway

Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for failing to ensure

driver assistance systems like Tesla Autopilot or

nascent self-driving vehicles are safe.

NHTSA declined to adopt NTSB's recommendations and said

drivers are expected to "remain fully and continuously engaged

in the driving task" but did push Tesla to recall 2 million

vehicles over the lack of Autopilot safeguards in December to

prevent driver misuse.

Tesla said in December it did not agree with NHTSA's

analysis but would deploy an over-the-air software update that

will "incorporate additional controls and alerts" to further

encourage drivers to adhere to their continuous driving

responsibility when using Autopilot.