New High-Flying Rules Have Air-Tour Pilots Feeling Low : Aviation: Hawaii operators say the FAA’s minimum altitude regulation, and others, could put them out of business.

A new set of federal regulations has Hawaii’s air-tour operators flying high this month--and they’re not happy about it.

Until late last month, helicopter and fixed-wing-plane pilots in the booming Hawaiian air-tour industry flew much of the time with no mandated minimum altitude, swooping low to offer close-up views of fuming volcanoes, verdant canyons and wave-lashed coastline. The air tours, generally priced at $60-$200 per person (often including piped-in portentous music and videocassette keepsakes; often excluding flotation devices) attracted an estimated 400,000 passengers last year, most of them for helicopter trips.

But even the most successful flights angered many hikers and others on the ground with their engine noise, and some other flights ended in catastrophe: Authorities counted eight fatal accidents (24 deaths) on the islands between 1982 and 1991--and five more fatal accidents (and another 24 deaths) along with 15 non-fatal accidents between July, 1991, and July, 1994.

Federal Aeronautics Administration administrator David R. Hinson cited these circumstances, along with two July 14 helicopter accidents (one fatal, one not) on Sept. 22 when he declared an “urgent safety problem” and set new flight regulations. Under those “emergency” regulations, enacted Oct. 26, Hawaiian tour pilots must:

* Keep their craft at least 1,500 feet above the ground and 1,500 feet from canyon walls, except during landing and takeoff and in areas where lower altitudes are specifically authorized by top FAA officials.

* Equip non-amphibious helicopters and planes with flotation devices (to keep the craft from sinking immediately in the sea) or provide an individual flotation device for each passenger aboard. (In the fatal crash on July 14, the FAA reports, a helicopter with life vests but without flotation devices went down off Kauai’s Na Pali coast with seven people aboard. The pilot and two passengers were killed.)

“People are still going to get very nice rides,” said Jim Martin, superintendent of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and a supporter of the new restrictions. “But they’re not going to be E (ticket) rides.”

The new restrictions also call for pilots to file pre-flight performance plans; to maintain enough combined height and speed to permit a safe landing in the event of engine power loss, and to brief passengers before flights on flotation devices, emergency-exit and water-ditching procedures. FAA officials said they are also considering other actions “to address noise and other issues” associated with tour flights over the islands.

Air-tour company officials, 23 of whom are represented by the Hawaii Helicopter Operators Assn., said they think the new round of regulations has more to do with noise complaints than safety, and have sought delay or removal of the new restrictions. At press time neither had been granted. Key players in the issue were starting to talk about where FAA officials might actually authorize flights beneath 1,500 feet.

“Anyone who looks at this objectively will see that noise is the key,” says Bob DeCamp, president of the Helicopter Operators Assn. He argues that Hawaii’s tour helicopters average fewer than five accidents per 100,000 flight-hours, while helicopters and small aircraft nationwide have averaged six to seven accidents per 100,000 flight-hours.

(Last Tuesday, after a report of mechanical trouble, a tourist helicopter crashed into the Caribbean near Cozumel, Mexico, reportedly killing 12 Americans, one Italian and the pilot.)

The Hawaii pilots also argue that because of island geography and weather patterns--in some places, 1,500-foot peaks stand beneath cloud layers at 2,500 feet--the altitude requirement makes many sights unviewable most of the time, including Kauai’s Waimea Canyon, often described as Hawaii’s answer to the Grand Canyon.

Will Squyres, a veteran helicopter pilot on Kauai, suggested that if the FAA’s “unreasonable” and “politically motivated” measures are allowed to stand, they could nearly wipe out the air-tour business on his island, where many operators are still recovering from Hurricane Iniki. (Squyres took me on a helicopter tour of Kauai last year, and we reached many of the island’s most remarkable views by hovering as low as 300 feet from valleys, cliffs and canyon walls.)

Throughout the islands, air-tour operators said, the regulations could decimate an industry that in a decade has grown to include, by the FAA’s count, 38 operators using approximately 97 helicopters and 16 fixed-wing aircraft. Tour companies are scrambling now to assemble new routes and set new prices, so would-be passengers should be sure they have a clear idea where their tour will go, how long it will last, and what will and won’t be visible from 1,500 feet.

The largest of the state’s helicopter tour companies is Papillon Hawaiian Helicopters, with 21 craft flying over four islands. General Manager Bill Payne estimated that the new rules could cost the company “40% to 60% of our business” and warned that as companies adopt new tour routes on the more-populated leeward sides of islands, noise complaints could actually increase.

Recent events, however, may muffle Papillon’s voice in the debate. On Oct. 24, two days before the new rules took effect, a Papillon helicopter, apparently suffering from engine trouble, crash-landed in a clump of trees in a valley on Maui. Three of the four people aboard suffered minor injuries, Payne said.