Too often helicopters got dangerously close to passenger planes in Las Vegas, FAA says

Washington
CNN
 — 

The Federal Aviation Administration says analysis in the wake of January’s crash between an Army helicopter and a passenger jet landing at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport has identified other airports where the risks of similar collisions are too high.

The agency identified Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas as having “several immediate issues,” a statement by FAA Acting Administrator Chris Rocheleau said.

The comments come after a “rotorcraft safety roundtable” held Tuesday.

Helicopters were supposed to avoid airplane arrival and departure corridors, but in Las Vegas those lacked defined measurement, Rocheleau said. Air traffic controllers also did not issue warnings between returning air tour helicopters and arriving or departing airplanes, commonly allowing them to get to close.

Las Vegas is dense with helicopter aerial sightseeing operators offering tours of the “the strip” and other nearby landmarks such as the Grand Canyon.

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

Other areas, including offshore helicopters in what the US government now calls the “Gulf of America,” along with Hollywood Burbank Airport and Van Nuys Airport in the Los Angeles area also being studied by the agency.

“We are using machine learning and language modeling to scan incident reports and mine multiple data sources to find themes and areas of risk,” Rocheleau said.