STAND. COM. REP. NO. 1363

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.R. No. 123

S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2021

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Transportation, to which was referred S.R. No. 123 entitled:

"SENATE RESOLUTION URGING THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS, THE FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION, AND THE HAWAII DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION TO TAKE EVERY ACTION NECESSARY TO ADDRESS RAPIDLY INCREASING SAFETY RISKS AND COMMUNITY DISRUPTION RESULTING FROM INSUFFICIENT REGULATION OF RAPIDLY INCREASING OPERATIONS OF TOUR HELICOPTERS AND SMALL AIRCRAFT THROUGHOUT HAWAII SKIES,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to urge the appropriate authorities to take every action necessary to address the safety risks and community disruption from tour helicopter and small aircraft operations.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the O‘ahu Tour Helicopter Safety and Noise Inter-Action Group, Pearl City Neighborhood Board No. 21, and one individual.

Your Committee finds that tour helicopter and small aircraft operations constitute a significant risk to passengers and residents on the ground. Over the past five years tour helicopters and small aircraft operations in Hawaii accounted for nearly seventeen percent of the nation-wide accidents that prompted investigations by the National Transportation Safety Board. In one ten-month period spanning 2019 to 2020, twenty-three lives were lost in four separate tour helicopter or small aircraft accidents on Oahu and Kauai. Therefore, it is imperative that the United States Congress, Federal Aviation Administration, and the Hawaii Department of Transportation take every action necessary to address the safety risks from insufficient regulation of tour helicopters and small aircraft operations.

Your Committee has amended this measure by:

(1) Adding the Western Regional Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration as a recipient of a certified copy of this resolution; and

(2) Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Transportation that is attached to this report, your Committee concurs with the intent and purpose of S.R. No. 123, as amended herein, and recommends its adoption in the form attached hereto as S.R. No. 123, S.D. 1.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Transportation,

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CHRIS LEE, Chair