In an April 22 update from acting FAA Administrator Chris Rocheleau, the FAA highlighted positive results from analysis of hotspot airports and other high-risk areas. This effort is a result of the January 29 midair collision at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (KDCA) between a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter and a PSA Airlines CRJ, killing all 67 people on both aircraft.
Following release of the NTSB’s preliminary report on the midair collision, Rocheleau testified before the U.S. Senate on March 27, outlining plans “to analyze other airports that have both charted helicopter routes and nearby airplane traffic.”
This effort includes assessing offshore helicopter operations in the Gulf and “using machine learning and language modeling to scan incident reports and mine multiple data sources to find themes and areas of risk.” The FAA also permanently restricted non-essential helicopter operations and eliminated mixed helicopter and fixed-wing traffic around KDCA.
The FAA’s analysis has already uncovered issues at Harry Reid International Airport (KLAS) in Las Vegas, such as “agreements with local helicopter operators [that] require them to avoid arrival and departure corridors that lack defined vertical or lateral measurements.” Air tour helicopters returning to the airport and arriving and departing airplanes were not receiving traffic advisories from tower controllers, according to Rocheleau, “resulting in a routine lack of compliance with Class B separation rules.”
After requiring positive control over helicopters and the issuance of more traffic advisories to pilots, “the number of traffic alert and collision avoidance system reports decreased by 30% in just three weeks,” he said. More actions are planned for the Las Vegas area, and the FAA is examining issues at other airports.
Another area of focus is the mix of faster- and slower-moving airplanes, and the FAA is already examining traffic flows around Hollywood Burbank (KBUR) and Van Nuys (KVNY) airports in Southern California. “They’re less than 10 miles apart, each serve a wide mix of aircraft, and they have closely spaced arrival and departure paths,” Rocheleau said.
On April 22, the FAA outlined the work on hotspot airports during a rotorcraft safety roundtable attended by FAA personnel, rotorcraft associations, safety organizations, and rotorcraft operators.
“But while the recent public focus has been on interactions between helicopters and airplanes, the core rotorcraft safety issues remain operations and maintenance,” Rocheleau said. “The top causes of accidents are loss of control, striking an object during low-altitude operations, and both unintentional and intentional flight into instrument meteorological conditions.”
The FAA asked roundtable attendees for ideas on safety improvements, and some of the suggestions included: “more FAA involvement in sponsoring peer pilot programs to encourage greater participation; ensure FAA inspectors are trained consistently in applying the safety management system (SMS) rule; FAA-industry partnerships to improve SMS outreach; increased use of aircraft technology and simulation; evaluate how the FAA approves training simulators; expansion of the FAA’s weather camera system; and expand instrument flight rule routes that allow helicopters to safely navigate at lower altitudes.”
Finally, Rocheleau highlighted a new aviation rulemaking committee (ARC) formed to respond to a 2024 FAA Reauthorization Act requirement to improve commercial air tour safety.
“While we began this work months before the air tour helicopter crash in the Hudson River,” he said, “that accident underscored that aviation safety is not static. There is always room for improvement.”
The ARC’s first meeting is planned for May 20, and its members will submit recommendations by late September.
“While flying remains the safest mode of transportation,” he concluded, “we must always strive to do better. We have to identify trends and get smarter about how we use data. And when we put corrective actions in place, we must execute them.”