On Feb. 5, one day before the crash of Bering Air Flight 445, the Federal Aviation Administration informed a group of Alaska air carriers that it would no longer be a member of two organizations that address safety and other issues.
At the same time, the agency told the Alaska Air Carriers Association that the FAA’s regional administrator, Mike O’Hare, would not be speaking at the association’s annual convention in Anchorage this month.
For convention organizers, the FAA’s withdrawal created a challenge in finalizing the agenda for the event, which is set to begin on Feb. 26.
According to AACA Executive Director Will Day, he was told as an explanation that the FAA would no longer be participating “in any industry engagements.” When asked to comment on the series of withdrawals, an FAA spokesperson replied, without getting into specifics, that “FAA employees will continue to attend meetings and engage with stakeholders on safety-related matters.” O’Hare remains out of the convention however and a recent scheduled meeting of a group hosted by the agency — the FAA Alaska Industry Council — was cancelled.
The Aviation Coordination Council, one of the groups the FAA announced it will no longer be a member of, dates back over 25 years, to the period when the FAA-funded Capstone program was deployed among commercial operators throughout several regions in the state. Designed to improve situational awareness, Capstone provided GPS-based maps in the aircraft for the pilot and another form of avionics technology, Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast, which broadcast the aircraft’s position out to other similarly equipped aircraft. The broad success of Capstone in reducing accidents in Alaska led to nationwide deployment of ADS-B technology. One of the areas of investigation for the recent Washington, D.C., midair collision involves the lack of ADS-B, either turned off or missing entirely, on the Black Hawk helicopter that collided with American Airlines Flight 5342.
The council included various federal and industry representatives who worked on the Capstone rollout and then moved on to other issues impacting Alaska’s airspace, flight activity and flight safety. Adam White, the council’s current chair, described the group this week as a collaborative effort between the FAA and industry, which covers topics over a wide range of issues impacting those who fly. The council’s purpose, said White, “is to seek out frank and meaningful conversations.” Day described it as a place for “roundtable discussions with brainstorming on all kinds of issues.” The next Alaska Coordination Council meeting will be in March at the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities office in Anchorage.
The other safety group that the FAA is leaving is the Aviation Weather Working Group. It was an outgrowth of a summit held last summer in Yakutat focused on aviation weather system failures in rural Alaska. Initiated by U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the summit was scheduled after the state Legislature passed a resolution urging the federal government to address chronic, long documented outages with automated weather systems situated at airports statewide. The summit was an opportunity to organize communication between the many different stakeholders involved in overseeing that equipment. As funding for the systems was included in the 2024 FAA Reauthorization Act, momentum on the issue appeared to be strong. In Yakutat, Sen. Murkowski noted that, at any given time, typically 50% of the automated weather systems are either completely or partially not working. Following the meeting, which included representatives from government agencies, industry and general aviation groups, and telecom companies, the framework was expanded to form the Aviation Weather Working Group. According to Day, its first meeting is planned during the AACA convention.
White has continued to engage on various matters with the regional FAA office in his separate capacity with the Alaska Airmen’s Association, a nonprofit membership organization that promotes general aviation. He does not believe the current disconnect is permanent and remains hopeful that FAA participation will return to normal soon.
“This is not the first time something like this has happened with a new administration,” he said, while acknowledging the current break is more abrupt than in the past. For Day, the FAA’s withdrawal created a pressing issue. Convention organizers have moved a state transportation department presentation, providing an update on a plan for the statewide aviation system, to O’Hare’s scheduled position. Day notes that there is a panel discussion on the first day that O’Hare also was previously scheduled to be part of — its title is “The Future of Weather in Alaska.”
Meanwhile, on Feb. 11, Alaska’s congressional delegation spoke to the press at a news conference with new U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy. The group collectively voiced support for reliable weather information in Alaska and, echoing countless politicians, federal personnel, and state officials before him, Duffy said, “You have really rough weather in Alaska.” He then continued, “If you need good weather information in any place in the 50 states, you need it in Alaska.” U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan specifically mentioned two federal laws — the FAA Reauthorization Act and 2021’s Don Young Aviation Alaska Safety Initiative — as evidence of continued support of aviation safety.
As it happens, those were the exact topics O’Hare was scheduled to discuss in his now cancelled speech before the Alaska convention.
• Colleen Mondor is an aviation journalist specializing in Alaska. She is the author of “The Map of My Dead Pilots: The Dangerous Game of Flying in Alaska” and covered aviation for Alaska Dispatch and the Anchorage Daily News. She has been published in various publications and sites, including Aviation International News, Skies Magazine, and Men’s Journal. This article originally appeared online at alaskabeacon.com. Alaska Beacon, an affiliate of States Newsroom, is an independent, nonpartisan news organization focused on connecting Alaskans to their state government.
