US FAA takes action to prevent helicopter incidents near Las Vegas airport

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By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Federal Aviation Administration said on Tuesday it is taking action to prevent collisions between helicopters and passenger planes around the busy Las Vegas airport, citing significant safety issues.

A January 29 collision between a helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet near Reagan Washington National Airport killed 67 people and prompted the FAA to launch a review of helicopter operations near major U.S. airports.

The FAA said it was addressing several serious issues involving helicopters at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, partly stemming from a routine lack of compliance with separation rules as tower controllers had not issued traffic advisories between returning air tour helicopters and airplanes.

In March, Congress blasted the FAA for failing to act for years to address helicopters in “dangerous proximity” to commercial airplanes near Reagan Washington, citing 15,000 reports of dangerous proximity between planes and helicopters since 2021. “Clearly something was missed,” Acting FAA Administrator Chris Rocheleau said.

The FAA said in Las Vegas agreements with local helicopter operators requiring them to avoid arrival and departure routes lack defined vertical or lateral measurements. 

“We took quick action including exercising positive control over the helicopters and issuing more traffic advisories to pilots. As a result, the number of traffic alert and collision avoidance system reports decreased by 30% in just three weeks,” the FAA said.

It added it is planning further actions around Las Vegas, the eighth busiest U.S. airport by passengers.

The FAA in March imposed permanent restrictions on helicopter traffic around Reagan Washington that has the single busiest runway in the United States. The FAA has mandated a halt to air traffic when essential helicopters are operating near Reagan.

The FAA is also scrutinizing airplane traffic flows around Hollywood Burbank Airport and Van Nuys Airport in the Los Angeles area, which are less than 10 miles apart and serve a wide mix of aircraft with closely spaced arrival and departure paths.

The FAA held a helicopter safety roundtable on Tuesday that also looked at operations and maintenance. An air tour helicopter crash in the Hudson River near New York earlier this month killed six, raising new questions about the safety of operations.

The FAA said the top causes of helicopter accidents “are loss of control, striking an object during low-altitude operations, and both unintentional and intentional flight” in poor weather.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Leslie Adler and Sonali Paul)