(Photographs taken by passengers from the August 2021 accident flight. Source: NTSB.) <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n\u201cThere have been too many air tour tragedies in Ketchikan, a\nplace with unique \u2014 but well understood \u2014 safety hazards that endanger the\nlives of pilots and passengers alike,\u201d said NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy.\n\u201cUnless the FAA acts swiftly, experience tells us to expect even more\nheartbreak and preventable loss of life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The NTSB is asking FAA to issue special federal aviation regulations\nspecific to Ketchikan to require more conservative flight visibility minimums\nand enhanced weather training for air tour pilots flying there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These recommendations stem from a review of fatal air tour\ncrashes in Ketchikan from 2007 to the most recent in August 2021, in which the\npilot and all five passengers died. In reviewing these crashes, the NTSB\nreevaluated the effectiveness of 13 safety recommendations it issued to the FAA\nbetween 2008 to 2017 aimed at improving air tour safety in the Ketchikan area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The NTSB said that FAA\u2019s response to many of its\nrecommendations involved voluntary operator actions that are no longer in\neffect or that had proven ineffective at mitigating the \u201coverlapping hazards\u201d\npresented by a rapidly changing weather environment and mountainous terrain.\nBoth are often factors in fatal air tour crashes in Ketchikan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The report noted that a more effective way to further safety\nhas occurred when FAA issued specific special federal aviation regulations. An\nexample of this success was when the FAA issued special federal aviation\nregulations in response to a string of fatal accidents involving air tour\naircraft in other geographic areas with distinct operational hazards, including\nthe Grand Canyon and Hawaii.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those regulations included establishing minimum flight\naltitudes, enhanced equipment safety requirements and airspace limitations for\ncertain geographic areas. The FAA stated that those regulations have been\neffective in decreasing the fatality rate for air tour accidents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSpecial federal aviation regulations have effectively\nreduced air-tour accidents in other areas, saving untold lives. We need the\nsame safety leadership now \u2014 before there\u2019s yet another tragedy in Ketchikan,\u201d\nHomendy said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The complete 20-page aviation investigation report is available on the NTSB website.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The National Transportation Safety Board is calling on the Federal Aviation Administration to issue special regulations to address flight safety hazards specific to air tour operations in Ketchikan, Alaska. In a report issued last week, the NTSB said that seven air tour airplane crashes in and around Ketchikan since 2007, killing 31 people and seriously […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alaska"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24258"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24260,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24258\/revisions\/24260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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