Helicopter safety review finds dangerous conditions at Las Vegas airport

A helicopter safety review found dangerous conditions at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, according to a Tuesday readout from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Acting FAA Administrator Chris Rocheleau referenced the deadly crash in January between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines passenger plane outside of Washington as a justification for conducting analysis on other airports — beginning with Las Vegas — during a roundtable on rotorcraft safety.

“We took swift action by permanently restricting non-essential helicopter operations and eliminating helicopter and fixed-wing mixed traffic around the airport,” Rocheleau said, pointing to the response after the Reagan Washington National Airport crash. “We also began analyzing other ‘hotspot’ airports that have charted helicopter routes and nearby airplane traffic, as well as the Gulf of America, including offshore helicopter operations.”

“This work is well underway,” he added. “We are using machine learning and language modeling to scan incident reports and mine multiple data sources to find themes and areas of risk.”

In his comments, the acting aviation chief said an initial analysis by the agency uncovered “several immediate issues” at the Las Vegas airport.

He explained that local helicopter operators’ agreements at Harry Reid International Airport already require them to “avoid arrival and departure corridors that lack defined vertical or lateral measurements.” Rocheleau added there are no traffic advisories issued “between returning air tour helicopters and arriving or departing airplanes,” per the readout.

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

The push for helicopter safety reviews come after the collision over the Potomac River rattled air travelers across the country, with other notable aviation safety incidents occurring in the weeks following the crash raising fears about flying. The incident also marked the deadliest aviation accident in the U.S. since November 2001, and 67 people were killed.

Rocheleau said the crash outside of National Airport “exposed hazards from the mix of helicopters and fixed-winged aircraft in the surrounding airspace.”

The Hill has reached out to the Clark County Department of Aviation for comment.