About two years ago, USPA received a draft bill proposed by U.S. Senators from the state of Hawaii. Bill S3967, titled the “Air Tour & Skydiving Safety Improvement Act of 2020,” held some strong legislative language that, if passed, would create big changes for air-tour operators, as well as drop zone operators. At that time, Hawaii was struggling with a number of air-tour helicopter crashes. The tragic 2019 King Air crash at a drop zone in Hawaii also caught the attention of legislators in the state, leading to the desire to formulate this bill.

On the skydiving safety portion of this bill, the authors reached back and grabbed three National Transportation Safety Board recommendations from 2008. These three resurrected regulatory items—which the Federal Aviation Administration debated and rejected in 2008—would be directed toward jump aircraft operators. These items are:

• A requirement that the FAA’s maintenance and inspection programs make engine manufacturers’ recommended maintenance instructions mandatory, including time between overhauls.
• Jump operators must develop initial and recurrent pilot training programs.
• Parachute operations pilots must undergo initial and annual testing programs.

USPA began working with the Hawaiian Senators’ offices in an effort to better understand what facts and data they may have gathered that led them to resurrect these aged, previously debated and discarded topics. We also provided facts and data that USPA has compiled on skydiving aircraft accidents, including causes, in efforts to work to craft language that we believe would potentially increase safety in our sport. Those discussions did bring about certain changes to the proposed bill, but unfortunately not to a level that allows USPA to comfortably endorse it.

Here we are now in 2022, and the bill has once again resurfaced and is attempting to make its way through the Transportation Committee. There is an effort to attach this bill as a noncontroversial amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, which would bypass debate. USPA, with the assistance of drop zone operators in key states, is actively lobbying against that fast-tracking and the bill’s inclusion, as it has nothing to do with defense.

The newest draft of this bill still contains language that would be extremely costly to our sport and our drop zone operators. On its own, this bill would bring little to no increase in safety.

USPA cares about safety. Our members and our drop zone operators care about safety. No one has more at stake than we do when it comes to ensuring our aircraft and our sport is conducted in the safest way possible. We’ll continue to work with the FAA and our friends on Capitol Hill to ensure that any necessary legislation that affects our activities truly brings an increased level of safety to skydiving and those who enjoy it.

Blue skies,

Albert Berchtold | D-27832
USPA Executive Director