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September 3, 2009

F.A.A. Plans Changes in Hudson Flight Rules

By AL BAKER

The Federal Aviation Administration said on Wednesday that it would issue new rules governing how airplanes, helicopters and other touring and official aircraft operate in the congested air corridor above the Hudson River.

Administration officials said the agency would also develop new training programs for pilots, air-traffic controllers and the tourist helicopter operators that use the corridor. And, for the largest part of the airspace, the agency said it would set limits for how fast the aircraft may fly and would require that every pilot in that airspace be tuned to the same radio channel — protocols that are now voluntary.

“These steps will significantly enhance safety in this busy area and create crystal-clear rules for all of the pilots who operate there,” the agency’s administrator, J. Randolph Babbitt, said in a statement outlining the changes.

The steps were recommended by a special panel convened by the aviation agency after a midair collision on Aug. 8 in which a single-engine plane collided with a touring helicopter over the river. The accident killed nine people, including a group of tourists from Italy.

The agency’s action is an effort to refine the regulations governing a congested airspace that one elected official has referred to as the Wild West.

A week earlier, the National Transportation Safety Board — an advisory body that has the lead role in investigating the crash but lacks the authority to order changes — issued its own set of recommendations, which are, by some measures, fundamentally different from the aviation agency’s proposals.

A spokeswoman for the safety board said Wednesday that it would look more carefully at the proposed changes in the days ahead.

Though the aviation agency’s proposals have to pass through a rulemaking process in Washington, including being subject to public comment, the agency will expedite the process and expects to have all of the changes in place by Nov. 19, said Laura J. Brown, an aviation agency spokeswoman.

Even as the proposed changes were made public, United States Representative Jerrold Nadler, who represents the West Side of Manhattan, released a statement calling them “fundamentally inadequate.”

Senator Charles E. Schumer also said he was not happy with the proposed changes. “The F.A.A. took a first step, but more has to be done,” Mr. Schumer said in a statement, citing the fact that under the proposals, controllers would not monitor planes below 1,000 feet. “We urge the F.A.A. to go back to the drawing board and put in the necessary additions to keep the corridor safe.”

An aide to Mr. Nadler said he and other lawmakers from New York and New Jersey had advanced a variety of ideas that the aviation agency had ignored. Primarily, Mr. Nadler was pushing to require all planes flying in the corridor to have a cockpit device that warns when another aircraft is too close, said the aide, Robert M. Gottheim.

“It is not something that you have to actively go on a radio for, but technology allows the system to operate automatically,” Mr. Gottheim said. “It would greatly diminish human error.”

The proposals put forward by the aviation agency deal with the finer points of flying aircraft through some of the most complicated airspace in the nation. At the core, the changes would create space for pilots who want to pass quickly through the area while avoiding the zigzagging planes or helicopters hoping to linger in the area for sightseeing.

Under the new configuration, a general aviation pilot could fly in a newly designated corridor above other general aviation traffic, yet be under the direction of air traffic controllers, a slight variation from current practice.

A second altitude corridor, from 1,000 to 1,300 feet, would be for planes to fly above other traffic but use, as a main means of avoiding collision, a technique called “see and avoid” — basically, meaning that pilots look out their windows to spot other aircraft.

A third airspace would be created for all aircraft operating under 1,000 feet, Ms. Brown said.

In the two lower-altitude corridors, the rules that would become mandatory include: Requiring pilots to tune their radio to a frequency of 123.05, known as the common traffic advisory frequency, and to announce their description, location, direction and altitude when entering the area; requiring southbound planes and copters to hug the New Jersey coastline and northbound ones to hew closely to the West Side of Manhattan; setting speeds at 140 knots or less for all aircraft; and requiring pilots to turn on anti-collision devices, navigation equipment and landing lights.

Any pilots of fixed-wing airplanes leaving Teterboro Airport, in New Jersey, would have to enter the uncontrolled air corridor via a special route over the George Washington Bridge. If those pilots desired to fly into controlled airspace, the controllers at Teterboro would have to gain approval from their counterparts at Newark Liberty International Airport before takeoff.

As for the training programs the aviation agency said it intends to develop, Ms. Brown said they would be added to pilots’ routine training but would not be mandatory for all pilots.

“We are requiring that if you operate in that airspace, you know the rules,” Ms. Brown said, adding, “There will be multiple ways that pilots can learn the rules.”

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company