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New FAA rule for air ambulance sector will impact all helicopter operators

By Vertical Mag | February 21, 2014

Estimated reading time 6 minutes, 36 seconds.

The United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued a sweeping new rule for helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) operators — one that also changes Class G airspace weather minimums, and places significant equipment and training demands on non-HEMS commercial helicopter operators.
Under the final rule, which filed with the Federal Register on Feb. 20, all Federal Aviation Regulations (FAR) Part 135 helicopter operators will be required to equip their helicopters with radio altimeters by April 24, 2017, at an initial cost that the FAA estimates at $9,000 per aircraft.
Moreover, all Part 135 operators will be required to test their pilots in flat-light, whiteout, and brownout conditions; to have their pilots demonstrate competency in recovery from an inadvertent encounter with instrument meteorological conditions (IMC); to use higher weather minimums when identifying an alternate airport in a flight plan; and to have occupants wear life preservers and equip helicopters with a 406 MHz emergency locator transmitter (ELT) when a helicopter is operated beyond power-off gliding distance from shore.
The new rule also revises weather minimums for helicopters flying under visual flight rules (VFR) in Class G airspace. Currently, helicopters operating VFR in Class G airspace at less than 1,200 feet above the surface are permitted to operate clear of clouds at a speed that gives the pilot adequate opportunity to see any air traffic or obstruction in time to avoid a collision. The new rule establishes a minimum one-half statute mile visibility by day and one statute mile visibility by night for Class G airspace operations — a change that will prohibit some existing civil and public aircraft operations that are currently conducted in very low visibility conditions.
These far-reaching changes are in addition to a long list of requirements targeted specifically at HEMS operators. Under the new rule, all air ambulance operators are required to:
  • Equip with helicopter terrain awareness and warning systems (HTAWS);
  • Equip with a flight data monitoring system within four years;
  • Establish operations control centers if they are certificate holders with 10 or more helicopter air ambulances;
  • Institute pre-flight risk-analysis programs;
  • Ensure their pilots in command hold an instrument rating;
  • Ensure pilots identify and document the highest obstacle along the planned route before departure;
  • Comply with VFR weather minimums, instrument flight rules (IFR) operations at airports/heliports without weather reporting, procedures for VFR approaches, and VFR flight planning;
  • Conduct the flight using Part 135 weather requirements and flight crew time limitation and rest requirements when medical personnel are on board; and
  • Conduct safety briefings or training for medical personnel.
The FAA’s final rule for the air ambulance sector comes nearly two years after its originally scheduled publication date, and five years after the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) called attention to the sector’s accident rate in a high-profile public hearing (click here to read more). The FAA says its final rule addresses most of the NTSB’s safety recommendations for the air ambulance sector. Specifically, the rule is intended to address the causes of 62 helicopter air ambulance accidents that killed 125 people during the period from 1991 through 2010, when the rulemaking process began. (From 2011 to 2013, another seven air ambulance accidents resulted in 19 fatalities).
The rule’s general provisions are also intended to address the causes of 20 commercial helicopter accidents that killed 39 people from 1991 through 2010, as well as 49 accidents with 63 fatalities in the same time period that occurred while the helicopter was operating under basic VFR weather minimums. “The FAA has determined that these accidents may have been prevented if pilots and helicopters were better equipped for IIMC [inadvertent instrument meteorological conditions], flat-light, whiteout, and brownout conditions, and for flights over water,” the rule states.
Conspicuously absent from the final rule is any requirement for night vision goggle (NVG) use by HEMS crews, which many air ambulance operators advocated for in addition to or in lieu of an HTAWS requirement. The FAA declined to include such a requirement for “numerous reasons,” the rule states, including the fact that “night vision goggles may not be appropriate for all operations, such as inadvertent flight into IMC. . . . The FAA is, however, currently investigating the benefits, uses, and limitations of NVGs.” Also, while some general Part 135 operators advocated for HTAWS in lieu of a radio altimeter requirement, the FAA is declining to mandate HTAWS for “the entire Part 135 helicopter population at this time.”
The FAA notes that it received a total of 179 comments about the proposal for this rulemaking, including comments from 32 operators, 11 manufacturers, and 13 associations. The rule notes, “Almost all of the commenters expressed support for the intent of the proposal but many suggested changes to individual requirements. Almost all of the provisions of the rule received some comment.”
The estimated cost of the final rule in present value for the air ambulance industry is $224 million with a total benefit of $347 million over 10 years. The cost for other commercial operators is $19 million with a total benefit of $83 million over 10 years. There is no cost for any operators to use new Class G airspace weather minimums for visual flying but the benefit is $147 million over 10 years, the FAA says.
To read the final rule on the Federal Register website, click here.

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