Situation reintroduces monthly bill to limit air tours more than neighborhoods

U.S. Rep. Ed Case, a Hawaii Democrat, re-introduced a measure to impose strict safety and group disruption polices on commercial air tour operations to include helicopters and compact planes.

His Harmless and Silent Skies Act would, among other items, require that tour flights fly higher than the 1,500-foot altitude over precise ground at all occasions with quite minimal exceptions for emergencies and takeoff and landing tour flights around occupied regions — which includes residential, business and recreational spots — to be no louder than 55 decibels, the identical amount of sound generally permitted for residential areas and prohibit tour flights around army installations, national cemeteries, national wilderness places, national parks and national wildlife refuges.

“In my Hawaii by itself, we saw a few lifeless in the crash of a business air tour helicopter into a residential community, 11 far more dead in the crash of a professional skydiving aircraft and then 7 more useless in a professional air tour helicopter crash in a distant mountain area,” Case instructed Dwelling users while introducing the monthly bill. “… These have disrupted entire communities with too much sound and other impacts, ruined the peace and sanctity of special destinations, increased hazard to not only travellers but these on the ground and weakened security and administration of protection operations.”

Case’s bill was launched in the final Congressional session, but didn’t acquire a hearing in the Residence Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.