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Series Of Helicopter Crashes Raises Concerns

October 18, 2005

Four times in 13 months helicopters from a Lantana-area flight school have crashed - onto the airport, in a vacant field in Boynton Beach, on a swampy island near John Prince Park. So far, pilots and students have walked away without serious injury. In three cases, students were practicing emergency landing maneuvers.

But the record raises red flags for County Commissioner Warren Newell, who said he expects the county airports director to write the Federal Aviation Administration again to express concern with the operations out of the Palm Beach County Park Airport near Lantana. The last time, Airports Director Bruce Pelly wrote: 'I am gravely concerned with the report of a second helicopter crash in Palm Beach County within 30 days involving student pilots.'

That was last August. Both crashes he referred to involved Robinson R-22 helicopters flown by instructors and students of Palm Beach Helicopters. The accidents were later attributed to mechanical failures, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. The school's pilots went on to fly without incident until June 18, when an instructor crash-landed his copter on a marsh island not far from the airport and near John Prince Park.

This month, another instructor from Palm Beach Helicopters, who had crashed last year, did so again, this time on airport property. He and his student were practicing a maneuver called 'autorotation,' in which a cut to power is simulated. The National Transportation Safety Board and the FAA are investigating these more recent incidents.

Pelly's weren't the only complaints filed with the FAA regarding helicopter operations at the airport. Last year, the city of Atlantis notified the agency of 'suspected flight violations committed by various helicopter pilots.' The city's complaint included a home video from a resident. The video, city attorneys contended, showed that the pilots were not following rules regarding flight patterns or keeping a safe distance from planes. 'It is imperative that you realize that this tape is NOT an isolated incident but is simply one event in a litany of violations,' wrote attorney Max Lohman, a former Navy helicopter pilot.

Neither complaint named Palm Beach Helicopters or two other helicopter flight schools that also operate out of the Lantana airport. But Palm Beach Helicopters owner Randy Rowles said after the first two crashes and complaints that his outfit was being targeted not for safety, but by residents who resent the noise. Last week, the company's general manager, Debbie Sparks, added that representatives have met regularly with airport officials to respond to complaints. The pilots try to do the maneuvers in airport space, away from homes, but that is not always possible, Sparks said. 'We do several hundred flights a month,' she said. 'Seven days a week we're flying.'

In June 2004, the FAA reported that after interviewing Rowles and reviewing his operations in detail, 'we were not able to discover any information that indicated Palm Beach Helicopters or other operators on the airport are operating contrary to the Federal Aviation Regulations or operating in an unsafe manner.' Pelly had also written for permission to find alternative places, such as empty fields, for the schools to use for training.

The FAA answered that the county's airports department can enter into such agreements if the schools are willing, but can't force those rules on schools that are not. 'Helicopter training is an aeronautical activity and cannot be arbitrarily restricted based on noise at a federally operated airport, such as LNA. . . . Furthermore, helicopter training is not inherently an unsafe aeronautical activity,' wrote Miguel Martinez, FAA program manager in the Orlando district offices. The FAA and NTSB were called to the scenes of last year's June and August accidents. Said Newell: 'We will talk to the FAA again about this incident and the continuance of incidents at the Lantana airport.'