No Surprises in FAA’s new Helicopter Safety Rules

The Federal Aviation Administration has released its proposed new regulations for helicopter safety.  The proposals include regulations for both medical helicopters and commercial helicopter safety.  These proposals come in the wake of a series of medevac helicopter crashes across the country.  They also come after a deadly commercial helicopter crash over the Hudson River that involved a private plane and a tourist helicopter, killing nine people in all.

None of the rules have too many surprises for California helicopter crash lawyers, and they do include many of the proposals that attorneys and safety groups have called for. The proposals had been eagerly awaited and the federal agency did not disappoint.  Among the proposals are:

• Requiring all medical helicopters to come with Terrain Avoidance Warning Systems
• Requirements for adequate rest and crew-time limitations for flight crew
• Establishment of operations control centers if a medical helicopter operator has more than 10 helicopters
• Establishment of pre-flight risk analysis systems
• Inclusion of visual flight rules weather minimums
• Inclusion of Instrument Flight Rules operations at the airport and helipads that are not equipped with weather reporting systems

For commercial operators, the FAA proposes:

• Revising of IFR alternate airport weather minimums
• Equipping helicopters with radar altimeters
• Displaying better competency in recovery from inadvertent entry into instrument meteorological conditions

The FAA is also proposing specific load manifest requirements for all Part 135 aircraft which includes helicopters and fixed wing on-demand operators.  This includes preparing the load manifest, sending it to the base of operations, and retaining a copy of the load manifest in case the documentation is destroyed in the crash.

These rules are still at the proposal stage, and it could be months or even a couple of years before we have an implementation of the rules.  However, they do mark a first step that does include many of the proposals that California EMS helicopter crash lawyers have called for.