Skies Beginning to Clear for Private Planes

The Federal Aviation Administration is reopening the skies over Los Angeles and 11 other cities to most private planes, leaving only Washington, New York and Boston with bans on small aircraft.

The action allows pilots in the 12 cities to resume flying under what are known as visual flight rules, in which the pilot is low enough in the sky in good weather to navigate by landmarks and is not required to file a flight plan, according to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Assn.

Operating away from major airports, such pilots usually don’t talk to controllers. About 90% of all private planes fly under visual flight rules.

The airspace over Los Angeles, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Miami and San Francisco reopened Monday to most private planes.

Other areas will be reopened over the next two days beginning at 4 a.m. PDT each day. Today, Denver, Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and San Diego will reopen; the airspace over Chicago and Orlando, Fla., will reopen Wednesday.

However, news helicopters and blimps still can’t fly within 30 metropolitan areas, including Los Angeles.

“I am hoping we’ll be up soon,” said Jeff Wald, news director at KTLA-TV Channel 5 in L.A. “It’s been a logistical nightmare.”

FAA restrictions prevent news pilots who are operating under visual flight rules from flying within a 25-mile radius of Los Angeles International Airport. That means police chases and rescues as well as traffic reports in the Los Angeles Basin have received less attention in recent weeks.

“We’ve been flying a lot of the San Fernando Valley,” Wald said. “And if any news breaks in Corona, we’re there.”

Fortunately, Wald said, no viewers have complained. “They understand. This is an extraordinary situation. We’ve never faced this in history.”

“But,” he said, sighing, “we’d sure like to get back in the air over L.A.”

The FAA decision also was welcome news for flight schools.

“It’s wonderful,” said Joe Justice, owner of Justice Aviation, a flight school and plane rental company based at Santa Monica Municipal Airport. “It means we might be able to survive.”

Justice estimated his business has lost $50,000 since the terrorist attacks Sept. 11. About half of the company’s 34 planes operate under visual flight rules. “We had to take out a loan to get through all of this,” Justice said. “Even now that we’re back in the air, I’m not entirely sure how things will look. The economy is not where it was before Sept. 11.”

In Boston, New York and Washington, pilots must continue to file flight plans with the FAA. In those cases, air traffic controllers are responsible for keeping pilots away from other aircraft. All private flights are banned within 20 miles of New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and Reagan National Airport near Washington. Seventeen small airports in those areas remain closed.

The ban also continues on foreign-owned private planes, unless they are registered in Canada or Mexico, flying into the U.S.