FAA flags risks at Las Vegas airport after Washington collision review

A federal review of helicopter safety concerns launched after the deadly midair collision in Washington, D.C., has identified a rash of concerns about the potential conflicts between air tour helicopters and planes at the Las Vegas airport.

The Federal Aviation Administration said Tuesday that it imposed new restrictions on helicopter flights around Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas that have already cut the number of collision alerts planes were receiving by 30 per cent over the last three weeks.

The FAA said in the wake of the collision between an American Airlines jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter in January that it planned to use artificial intelligence to dig into the millions of reports it collects to assess other places with busy helicopter traffic, including Boston, New York, Baltimore-Washington, Detroit, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and along the Gulf Coast. 

The FAA's acting administrator, Chris Rocheleau, said Las Vegas quickly became a concern once the agency dug into the data because agreements with helicopter operators there didn't clearly define vertical and lateral separation requirements when helicopters were approaching the airport.

And air traffic controllers in the tower weren't issuing traffic advisories between returning helicopters and airplanes.

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

Luke Nimmo, a spokesperson for Clark County Department of Aviation, referred all questions about the findings to the FAA.

Rocheleau promised to take additional actions in Las Vegas and at any other airport where the FAA identifies concerns.

The January midair collision over Washington, D.C. that killed 67 people was the deadliest aviation disaster in the United States since 2001.