Will regulators shrug off the Lockhart balloon crash that killed 16?

Oct. 14--When balloon pilot Alfred "Skip" Nichols crashed his nine-story-tall hot air balloon into power lines near Lockhart in July 2016, the deadliest hot air balloon crash in modern American history did more than kill 16 people. It upended the lives of countless family members and loved ones.

The toll on Patricia Morgan's family was particularly grim: She lost both her daughter and her granddaughter, who had booked the flight as a Mother's Day gift. Both women left behind children of their own.

"Everything has changed," she said. "This is the most horrific time of our lives. My great-granddaughter lost her mother and her grandmother. It's been a rough road."

Morgan and her husband left their life of comfortable retirement after the crash, selling their Colorado home and moving to San Antonio so Morgan could care for her great-granddaughter, a toddler, and her granddaughter, a high school senior.

Morgan's pain was compounded when a National Transportation and Safety Board investigation found that Nichols, the pilot, had ingested a "witch's brew" of prohibited medications, ranging from Valium to oxycodone, and had a lengthy criminal history involving drunken driving and drug offenses.

And so, even as she has adjusted to life as the caregiver for a baby girl, Morgan has led a push among family members of those killed to bring greater oversight to the commercial ballooning industry.

"Something's got to be done," said Morgan, who spearheaded a White House petition aimed at toughening regulations. "The government has to step in. They were aware of this particular pilot, but no one really took this seriously. It's just not right. We've got to change the laws."

Final recommendations

The first step toward change within the administration of commercial ballooning could come Tuesday, when the safety board holds its final hearing into the crash in Washington, D.C. Officials are expected to reveal the probable cause of the crash as well as make recommendations on how to make the balloon industry safer.

State Rep. John Cyrier, whose district encompasses the crash site and who has pushed for public hearings, believes safety officials will recommend that the Federal Aviation Administration require balloon pilots who fly paying customers to obtain a medical certificate to ensure their physical fitness.

Medical certificates require periodic evaluations from FAA-approved physicians, who can ground pilots if they are taking prohibited medications or suffer from a disqualifying condition such as bipolar disorder, certain types of diabetes or addiction to drugs or alcohol. Pilots must also report any drunken driving arrests and allow the FAA to check their driving records.

The FAA requires airplane and helicopter pilots to get medical certificates, and countries such as Canada, England and Australia require their balloon pilots to get one as well.

Cyrier, R-Lockhart, who is a pilot, said he is not in favor of additional regulations for pilots just flying their own balloon but says it's fair to require a medical certificate "if you're being paid and responsible for that many people."

The idea has garnered support from what might be considered an unlikely source: U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, typically an outspoken opponent of additional government regulation, filed a bill earlier this year requiring medical certificates for balloon pilots. The bill has been folded into the FAA's Authorization Act of 2017, which has been delayed until March.

"The Commercial Balloon Pilot Safety Act is based on a simple premise: that those we trust to pilot our loved ones through the skies meet simple and appropriate standards of medical fitness, whether they're piloting a jet, a propeller plane, or a hot air balloon," Cruz said in a statement to the American-Statesman. "While we cannot turn back time on the tragedy that occurred in the skies over Lockhart more than one year ago, the least we can do is ensure standards of accountability and safety so that an accident like this one does not happen again."

But so far, the FAA has been resistant to even less stringent safety recommendations from the safety board that have followed previous balloon crashes.

Two years before the Lockhart crash, safety board officials predicted a mass casualty balloon accident if the FAA didn't provide better oversight of commercial balloon rides. The agency recommended that Letters of Authorization be required for balloonists, as they are for helicopter and airplane pilots. The letters trigger additional oversight from local FAA officials, including drug and alcohol testing.

But citing what it called the "low" amount of commercial ballooning, the FAA has repeatedly rejected its sister agency's calls for more oversight. After U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, called on the FAA adopt the recommendation last year, the FAA told him it would wait until any new safety board recommendations came out. In the meantime, it said, it was pursuing greater cooperation with the Balloon Federation of America, a trade group that has steadfastly opposed additional balloon regulation.

Instead of more government regulation, the federation is pushing for a series of voluntary safety measures, including an education program for operators and a rating system based on experience, random drug screenings and insurance information.

In opposing the medical checks in Cruz's bill, the federation points to a recent survey it conducted in which 70 percent of respondents opposed the legislation. Federation members said they believe "safety seminars" would be more effective in preventing crashes.

Resistance to regulation

It's not clear if the FAA's position will soften after the safety board's final report, and one recent event might signal an even tougher stance against new regulations.

Newly installed FAA Deputy Administrator Daniel Elwell, appointed in June, is a former member of the Trump administration's "deregulation team," a group of officials charged with reducing the number of regulations enforced by federal agencies, according to The New York Times.

And last month, a federal advisory committee recommended the FAA cut or roll back more than 50 air-safety rules, according to The Wall Street Journal.

FAA officials have said previously they don't believe prohibited medications or drugs and alcohol have caused recent crashes, which they instead blamed on pilot error.

But FAA officials have been unable to articulate why balloon pilots were exempted from the medical certificate rule nearly a century ago. "In my 13 years at the FAA, we have not looked at that," said Dr. James Fraser, the agency's former federal air surgeon during a December hearing. "What happened ... in the 1930s, I cannot speak to."

National Transportation and Safety Board records show that in three of the last four deadly balloon crashes, pilots tested positive for prohibited medications or drugs that require FAA approval.

It's also not clear how large a problem it is since the safety board does not always perform toxicology tests on pilots involved in fatal crashes. And the agency has not publicly released the results of toxicology tests in more than a dozen crashes since 1993.

Tuesday's hearing could also take aim at what aviation experts have called the FAA's lackluster investigation into Nichols before the crash, which raised questions over how seriously the agency views safety concerns within ballooning.

Shortly after Nichols set up shop in Central Texas following his release from a Missouri prison, local balloonists caught wind of his criminal history, which he had concealed from officials, and informed the FAA. Yet even after confirming Nichols' numerous drug and alcohol convictions, any one of which could have led to the loss of his license, investigators merely sent him a warning letter.

Aviation attorneys have told the American-Statesman that a similar case involving an airplane or helicopter pilot would undoubtedly have led to suspension or revocation of a license to fly.

"I think there's no question there were some early opportunities to stop this, some early clues that were missed," Cyrier said. "I understand that the FAA has a lot to do, but there was clearly an opportunity to stop this pilot and prevent this horrible tragedy."

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