Proposed national safety standards for tour operators

[Flying Lawyer]

The FAA is proposing national safety standards to govern commercial air tours (i.e. sightseeing).
The proposal is a result of accidents/incidents involving air tour operators and subsequent NTSBoard recommendations and is intended to increase the safety of commercial air tours on a national basis by requiring certification of air tour operators and by establishing new safety requirements for commercial air tours in the continental United States, Alaska and Hawaii.

The proposed rule would require all air tour operators (with a limited exception for certain charitable and community events) to be certificated under Title 14 CFR part 119 to operate in accordance with part 121 or 135.
The proposed rule would further adopt a new subpart in part 136 that would establish requirements for low-level flight, standoff distance, visibility limits, cloud clearance, and over water operations.

In summary, the new rule would:

(1) establish a minimum altitude restriction of 1,500 feet AGL above any person, structure, vehicle, or vessel and 1,000 feet AGL over open terrain;

(2) establish horizontal distance requirements of 1,500 feet to any person, structure, vehicle, or vessel or 1,000 feet to raw terrain;

(3) prohibit commercial air tours in Class G airspace when visibility is less than two statute miles during the day, or three statute miles at night;

(4) prohibit operations in Class G airspace 500 feet below, 1,000 feet above, and 2,000 feet horizontally from any cloud;

(5) require life preservers for all occupants, fixed or inflatable floats for single engine helicopters and certain multi-engine helicopters, passenger briefing, and a helicopter performance plan before each departure.

Any comments on the proposal must be filed by January 20, 2004.


Links to the full document : FAA-1998-4521


FAA (http://www2.faa.gov/avr/arm/proc.cfm?nav=part)
Department of Transport (http://dms.dot.gov/search/document.cfm?documentid=257434&docketid=4521)

[RDRickster]

Well, that will pretty much ruin the tour business in Hawaii if they can't fly low level. Do they really want a written helicopter performance plan before each mission? Give me a break. :yuk:

[B Sousa]

Why would I suspect this thread to be originated by anyone besides an Attorney. (Just Joking)
Yes sir thats what we need more Government intervention to protect us from ourselves. Governments are good at that.
There are sufficient rules out there now, if Pilots and Operators would observe them. Sort of like we are not Policing ourselves so "Da Gubament' is here to help.
Life Preservers??, Pop-Outs? In the Caribbean We always use them, whats to Police?. I guess that may pertain to Hawaii.
In the case of the Grand Canyon I guess the Higher Minimums makes it easier for the F.A.& A to make observations and judge distance. With the Numbers that FL posted, there wont be any more Grand Canyon tours.. OK you got the message. Im sure the Hawaii and Alaska Guys will dig in on this also.
I know now that the FAA has been monitoring the Stratosphere Tower (Las Vegas) to see whos sneaking in to close . Its based on complaints by the Hotel and rightfully so. Some Pilots have already paid that price. They also have Transponder tracking of the circuits to verify whos not playing the game correctly. Im wondering when they will start hammering some there for flying low through the Luxor light at night. I know our company Policy is automatic firing if you do. Fired from a Tour job does not look good on a Resume with jobs scarce as they are..
Briefings? always, Preformance Plan?? Theres one I bet We could all improve on and Im sure Operators will cringe as they know some of their money( Large SLF) will get kicked off when the TRUE numbers get crunched.
OK as a Tour Toad, I have rambled enough, lets get some more opinions......

[Flingwing207]

Life jackets and floats - even if you aren't flying over water? Would this include those 5-minute, $25 R.44 flights over Orlando? Or more accurately, would it include Part 91 ops?

Performance plan - well, an Excel spreadsheet can do that for you. Plug in weights, temp, altimeter setting and you'll get an answer in a hurry. You can do it on a Palm or iPaq.

Question from someone who has never seen a tour, let alone flown one: do you do an "actual" W & B for each flight, as in weigh each passenger, place them at certain stations, ect?

Re: comments - is this an "anybody can comment" thing, or just operators?

[B Sousa]

Flinwing207 writes" Plug in weights"

Therin lies the Sticky Wicket for some. An example in my part of the world gives you certain factors other places dont have. We get a manifest for every flight with weights given by the PAX. Ever heard of folks who lie about weights?? You betcha, most of these folks hit two-three Buffets a day and sometimes tough to get their fat asses in the aircraft.
With "Guess Me" rather than actual Passenger weights, then consider Summer Temps over 100-115+ F with departure from 2050' MSL, then landing AND taking off from 5500' MSL. Crunch those numbers with the FAA watching and the Operators will have a Coronary as they WILL have to kick folks off and that means loss of money......BUT they can blame the Pilots...
The world is all about money, rule one.

[Shawn Coyle]

Why should tour operators have to fly farther away from people and obstacles than other pilots?
That sounds strange, and wouldn't improve safety. How about insisting on a tracking device (i.e. GPS) that would be available to show where the flight went.
Performance planning shouldn't be a problem, but it would be better to insist that it be based on real weights (i.e. a weigh scale at check-in - someone said that the Gulf Coast operators have weigh scales beside the helicopter to avoid the 100 pound tool box syndrome)
Would this stop people from being flown into the crater of a hot volcanoe? Then it might be a good thing...

[B Sousa]

Shawn writes" How about insisting on a tracking device (i.e. GPS) that would be available to show where the flight went."

Shawn as I understand now (via Rumors)in Vegas they are slipping their Butt Boys on Board with GPS relaying info as to the tracking at least in class B.. I may be wrong but if this is true and its via cellphone I think they are also breaking the rules with Cell interference. So if its true, lets see if they want to bring forth the evidence to slam a Pilot and then get arrested for their own violations.

[RDRickster]

To me, this says "you are not allowed to do anything a helicopter was designed for." Why don't they just say, "fixed-wing only." I think the 1000' AGL requirement is a bit off the top. As long as you aren't operating in the VH curve, you should be golden. As far as tour operators policing themselves, most are already members of TOPS (http://www.helitoursafety.com/) (Tour Operators Program of Safety). This group was created by tour operators for tour operators as a way to improve safety in that business (and it didn't take Big Brother to get involved).

Concerning legal issues, the U.S. Supreme Court said, "Safe is not the equivalent of risk free." The best you can do is implement control measures using a risk management matrix... new regulations aren't likely to accomplish the same. I'm not a tour operator, but one of the reasons I became a helicopter pilot is so I wouldn't be as limited as the fixed-wing guys. So, this kind of torques me off!

[Steve76]

How about better training so when the proverbial hits the fan the pilot will have a better chance of accomplishing a successful outcome. Being 1500ft up will only delay the inevitable rightoff during the auto.
...sounds far too practical.

[B Sousa]

RDR writes:"most are already members of TOPS " As a Pilot the only thing I have seen so far from TOPS is that we have wig wag lights......BFD

Steve 76 Writes:"Being 1500ft up will only delay the inevitable rightoff during the auto."
The restrictions as mentioned are OK for Fixed Wing. BUT this is a Helicopter Tour and folks like to see lizards run away as they fly by (just kidding). We have a company policy of 500' in Altitude and I see others who fly like they are being acquired by Radar operated Quad 50s.
The bigger problem for the Canyon is those restrictions will keep you OUT of the Canyon which is perfectly safe and legal for a helicopter given your other quote:"Safe is not the equivalent of risk free."

[Flingwing207]

I downloaded the docket from the FAA: NPRM - Air Tour Operators (http://dms.dot.gov/search/document.cfm?documentid=257434&docketid=4521)
It is quite a read, but after perusing the whole thing, it seems that the folks who will take it the hardest are the small and low-volume operators. Basically, it makes all air-tour operators fly to Part 135 standards. The FAA predicts a lot of small operators will elect to get out of the air-tour business.

On the good side, there are mechanisms built in so an operator can apply for waivers/modifications to allow closer/lower flying than the basic (new) rules will allow.

One other side note - the controls for float arming and deployment will be required to be on the flight controls.

[Gordy]

This is not news---In Hawaii we have been flying under these rules since 1993 (or 1994--I forget), its called SFAR 71. We have fought it in all the legal avenues possible but the FAA always wins claiming the new "Tour rules" will be here soon.

[Buitenzorg]

The really stupid part about all this is that the well-published accidents/incidents of the last few years have almost all involved operations that were already operating under Part 135. For instance, to operate sight-seeing tours in the Grand Canyon SFRA, the operator, crew and aircraft must all be Part 135 certified. All the operators I personally know of (admittedly I only know a few) in Hawaii are also Part 135 operators.

Ironically, some of the worst accidents have occurred in operations that were very serious about safety, complying with regulations and responsible behaviour by their employees. Like Bert, I too have seen people playing "aeroscouts in the Iron Triangle", but such antics were frowned upon by almost all pilots, and certainly not ignored - we just didn't get the feds involved. Chief Pilot-to-Chief Pilot usually worked very well.

It may all just be part of a cunning plan to slowly strangle the tour industry to death, and make no mistake, there are those in Congress and the Senate who want to see exactly that. First squeeze the bigger operators hard with "environmentally motivated" restrictions, like Hawaii and the Grand Canyon. Now go after the small operators - require them to implement "safety" standards which they cannot afford, and they'll go out of business. In a few years, when all the small operators have croaked, go back to the big operators and finish the job. Remember that initially neither the FAA nor the NPS wanted any part of "restoring natural quiet to the national parks" - far too vague and subjective, without any established standards. They were eventually forced to get involved by Congress, as part of the legislation approving their budgets.

[Gordy]

The comment period has been extended for this proposed rule. As of today there have been 1843 submissions/comments. I have looked at most of them and only found about 5 in favour of the rule.
To read all the comments, go [/URL]Here (http://dms.dot.gov/search/searchFormSimple.cfm) and type in FAA-1998-4521

To get an idea as to the issues we are dealing with I suggest reading the following comments:

The first is from Blue Hawaii Helicopters
http://dmses.dot.gov/docimages/pdf89/271217_web.pdf

and this is from the Helicopter Association International
http://dmses.dot.gov/docimages/pdf89/270420_web.pdf


Every comment that is placed on the docket will help our case.

Thanks