Washington state wing-walking flights halted as owner’s pilot licence revoked
The Mason Wing Walking business in Sequim that allowed people to clamber over the wings of a 1940s Stearman biplane while in flight is no more.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has revoked the pilot licence of Mike Mason, who has flown wing-walking flights for 12 years in Sequim in summer and in California in the winter.
The FAA “administrator has determined that an emergency exists related to safety in air commerce and that immediate action to revoke your Airline Transport Pilot certificate is required,” the federal agency wrote in a March 18 letter to Mason. Mason was barred from piloting any plane, effective immediately.
Although the government has now ruled his operation unsafe, in an interview last August Mason claimed that an FAA inspector had given him the all- clear to conduct wing-walking flights when he started flying them in 2012. He said he was assured he was exempt from the standard regulations governing commercial air carriers under rules specific to flight school, acrobatic and aerial photography missions. The FAA said then it was investigating this claim. The “emergency order of revocation” letter to Mason cites the outcome.
Based on multiple wing walking flights in Sequim last summer and further such flights in Santa Paula, California, in December, “you have advertised or offered passenger-carrying aircraft operations to the public without authorization,” the FAA ruled.
During the flights, each lasting about 25 minutes and costing $1,000 to $1,400 US for the thrill ride, the wing walker climbed out of the cockpit, tethered to a cable, at about 3,500 feet up.
He or she strapped into a harness on a fixed rig, standing on top of the wings as the bright red biplane performed aerobatics, including flipping upside down so that the person’s head pointed straight down at the ground. Then, disconnecting from the rig but still tethered to the cable, the wing walker climbed out onto the wings and lay astride a pole fixed horizontally between the upper and lower wings of the biplane, flying Harry Potter-style.
The FAA investigation determined that those flights “were careless or reckless so as to endanger the life or property of another.”
The letter states that in addition to operating his business without authorization, Mason violated air safety regulations by performing acrobatic flight manoeuvres when the paying passenger had no parachute.
This conduct “demonstrates you presently lack the degree of care, judgment and responsibility required,” the letter said.
Mason was instructed to surrender his revoked pilot certificate to the FAA immediately, subject to a fine of $1,828 per day for each day he fails to surrender it.
Mason has appealed the FAA action, though he remains barred from flying during the appeal process.