U.S. House passes balloon pilot bill
Pilot medical checks would be required to avoid such disasters as the Lockhart crash that killed 16.
Aiming to prevent tragedies similar to the fatal hot air balloon crash that killed 16 people near Lockhart in 2016, an Austin lawmaker won U.S. House passage of legislation Friday that would require medical checks for commercial hot air balloon pilots.
In October, the National Transportation Safety Board had found that the Federal Aviation Administration’s exemption for balloon operators to obtain a medical certificate contributed to the Caldwell County crash. The wide-ranging FAA bill that passed Friday includes an amendment by U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, that ends the exemption.
“The FAA should have corrected this long ago,” Doggett said this week as he introduced his amendment. “Now with adoption of this amendment, I am hopeful that no other family will ever suffer the same horror as this tragedy near Lockhart.”
U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Helotes, was a co-sponsor of the amendment.
The safety board concluded that a cocktail of prescription
drugs — including oxycodone, Valium and enough Benadryl to approximate the effects of drunken driving — contributed to pilot Alfred “Skip” Nichols’ pattern of poor decision-making. Safety board officials said Nichols’ depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder also might have played a role.
Since the crash, the issue of medical certificates, which are designed to ensure pilots are physically fit to fly, has united lawmakers across the political spectrum. After the federal safety board in October recommended that the FAA require medical checks for commercial balloon pilots — as it does for helicopter and airplane pilots — both Doggett and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, issued statements in support of the recommendation.
Medical checks are designed to uncover the use of prohibited medications, potentially impairing medical conditions and any history of driving while intoxicated. Nichols had a lengthy criminal history involving drunken driving and drug convictions that he never disclosed to the FAA.
Countries such as England, Canada and Australia require such certificates for balloon pilots.
But the FAA, which said in October it would “carefully consider” its sister agency’s recommendation, had sent signals that it planned to resist calls for greater balloon pilot oversight.
In October, for example, the agency, which for years has rejected the safety board’s calls for stricter balloon oversight, issued a news release praising an industry-led, voluntary safety program developed by the Balloon Federation of America as something that will “enhance safety and professionalism, and allow consumers to be better informed before they choose a commercial balloon ride operator.”
In October, National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Robert Sumwalt called it sad that the FAA was putting safety oversight in the hands of an industry group and not enforcing the same rule for balloon pilots that it does for helicopter and airplane pilots.
“I’m disappointed the FAA appears to be shirking its responsibility,” Sumwalt said.
Focus on pilot
A 2016 American-Statesman investigation found that nearly 70 percent of fatal balloon crashes since 1964 involved some form of pilot error. The analysis of every fatal hot air balloon crash investigated by the transportation safety board also found numerous safety issues, including improperly modified equipment, lack of helmets for passengers and inadequate safety briefings. Balloon deaths had been decreasing over the previous two decades before the Lockhart crash, according to the data.
In the crash’s aftermath, attention focused on Nichols’ lengthy criminal record, which included at least four drunken driving charges and two prison stints in Missouri related to drunken driving and drug distribution convictions. Nichols moved to Central Texas after he was released from prison in 2012.
Missouri authorities had stripped Nichols of his driver’s license, but he never lost his balloon operator’s license.
He told friends he was sober, though sources interviewed by FAA investigators gave differing answers on the length of his sobriety. (A former girlfriend told the Statesman that Nichols was a recovering alcoholic who had been sober for at least four years.) He flew paying customers in Texas, but wasn’t eligible for a Texas driver’s license because of his Missouri revocation.
Shortly after Nichols arrived, local balloon operators caught wind of his criminal history and reported their concerns to the FAA around December 2012.
But in a move that aviation attorneys and experts told the Statesman was highly unusual, FAA investigators took no action. Instead of suspending or revoking his pilot’s license, they sent Nichols a warning letter.
Despite the troubling revelations, the FAA didn’t keep Nichols on its radar. The agency studiously monitors the health of airplane and helicopter pilots, requiring medical checks every six months for most commercial pilots, and maintains a lengthy list of prohibited medicines, ranging from Xanax to allergy medicine.
‘Ecstatic’ about bill
The legislation approved Friday now moves to the U.S. Senate.
FAA spokesman Lynn Lunsford said the agency doesn’t comment on proposed legislation. He said the FAA is “still considering the NTSB’s recommendations.”
Doggett on Thursday said, “Only legislative action by us will address this problem.”
Patricia Morgan, who lost her daughter and granddaughter in the crash, which they had booked as a Mother’s Day gift, told the Statesman on Friday she was “ecstatic” about the House action.
“It’s important that no other families have to endure the heartache and pain that we’ve had to endure,” said Morgan, who moved to San Antonio from Colorado in the disaster’s aftermath to care for her great-granddaughter, a toddler, and her granddaughter, a high school senior. “I know nothing would change (otherwise): The FAA was pretty diligent about ignoring (the NTSB’s) recommendations. Doggett and Cruz have been pretty supportive mandating changes with the FAA. Had this not happened I believe nothing would have occurred.”