Each flight must be conducted at an altitude, and on a route, that will allow a jettisonable external load to be released, and the rotorcraft landed, in an emergency without hazard to persons or property on the surface.
@ Cyclic Hotline:
I am well aware of the rules and the Austrian regulation means more or less the same as the rule made by the FAA.
We all know that laws are very often made to ensure that the lawmakers cannot be held responsible. I would like to know how you would execute an emergency release without any damage to property? This is impossible, especially so over urban area.
I cannot imagine that in every ski ressort in the US (for example), the cable cars cease their work just because a chopper is in the area . As a matter if fact, you do not have one cable car - in large ski ressorts you have 30 to 40 of such installations. Do you really believe they always stop because of a chopper? I really doubt that...
I am fine with limitations regarding the distance to the cables / above them, but everything else is completely unrealistic if you have ever been in such an area.
Regards, Bernhard