Business off for sightseeing flights By DENNIS WILKEN TGI Staff Writer LIHU’E—Last week’s fatal helicopter crash on Maui which killed seven people, including six passengers and the pilot, was a tragic reminder that pleasure can be dangerous. Forty people have
Business off for sightseeing flights
By DENNIS WILKEN
TGI Staff Writer
LIHU’E—Last week’s fatal
helicopter crash on Maui which killed seven people, including six passengers
and the pilot, was a tragic reminder that pleasure can be dangerous.
Forty
people have died in 14 fatal helicopter crashes in the past decade in Hawai’i.
Twenty-eight of the deaths involved tour ‘copters.
Four of the fatal
crashes occurred on Kaua’i. Eleven people died in those accidents. Three of the
crashes and 10 of the deaths involved tour helicopters.
Tourist helicopter
crashes attract the most media attention, because the sightseeing flights
comprise the largest part of Hawai’i’s helicopter activity.
The helicopter
tour industry in the state has a good safety record, however. There are
hundreds of the flights a day on several islands, yet 80 percent of the
crashes—68 since 1990—haven’t resulted in any fatalities.
But Kaua’i
helicopter tour businesses are feeling the effects of last week’s fatal crash
on Maui, where an American Eurocopter AS355 Twin Star crashed into a
mountain.
The accident is under investigation by the National
Transportation Safety Board, an agency created 33 years ago to conduct
independent investigations of transportation mishaps.
Investigations have
been completed in 12 of the 14 tour helicopter crashes in Hawai’i since 1990,
and listed probable causes vary from pilot error to mechanical
failure.
“Oh, of course it affects the entire industry, regardless of the
(safety) statistics,” Rich Mendoza, general manager of Air Kaua’i Helicopter
Tours, said of the recent Maui crash.
Mendoza said he had no complaints
with regulations governing the helicopter tour industry. The rules were made
more stringent six years ago, but they “are good,” he said.
Helicopter
flights are one of the most popular tourist attractions on Kaua’i because “the
roads don’t go all around the island,” Mendoza explained.
Another reason
for the popularity of the tours is that so many of the attractions seen from
the air are located on private property and are inaccessible from the ground
without permission of the landowner.
According to Mendoza, the majority of
people taking the tours are not locals. During the summer, his company’s best
season, as many as 100 to 150 tourists a day are in the air over Kaua’i on Air
Kaua’i ‘copters alone, said.
A 20-year veteran of Kaua’i’s visitor industry
who requested anonymity said that as many as 1,000 tourists are above Kaua’i on
a mid-summer season day. The source agreed with Mendoza that business is off at
least slightly for now.
Tour prices vary from $99 upward, and flight
lengths range from 40 minutes to 90 minutes.
At least 10 firms are flying
tourists above Kaua’i. There were almost twice that many operating before
Hurricane Iniki in 1992.
Although a seemingly permanent part of Kaua’i’s
tourist landscape, and one of its most popular tourist activities, 30 years ago
there were only two helicopter tours available on the island.
Peter
Friedman, a Seattle-area tourist who first visited Kaua’i in 1972, said that’s
the biggest difference between today’s Kaua’i and the island of yesterday.
“There always seems to be a helicopter going over,” he complained.
But the
people in the air aren’t all visitors.
“The majority are tourists, but we
do get some locals who splurge for special occasions,” Mendoza said.
Staff
writer Dennis Wilken can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252).
