 A fatal helicopter crash in the Gulf of Mexico, involving an Era Aviation Sikorsky S-76A++ helicopter with two pilots transporting eight oil service personnel, was one of many crashes that prompted the decision.President Barack Obama awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to Bateman in 2010 for his invention of GPWS and its later evolution into EGPWS/TAWS.A modern TAWS works by using digital elevation data and airplane instrumental values to predict if a likely future position of the aircraft intersects with the ground.