Charles H. Henderson v. Federal Aviation Administration National Transportation Safety Board

Petitioner Charles H. Henderson, a helicopter pilot, challenges the National Transportation Safety Board’s sixty-day suspension of his commercial pilot license. The Board’s action stemmed from Henderson’s allegedly unsafe operation of his helicopter while transporting television journalists to photograph a derailed train in Corvallis, Oregon. We now affirm in part and reverse in part, and remand for a new penalty determination.

I.

Charles Henderson, a commercial helicopter pilot, provided helicopter services to a local television station in Springfield, Oregon. Henderson flew a Bell 206B helicopter, also known as a “Jet Ranger.” In January 1988, the television station hired Henderson to fly two journalists over the site of a train derailment in Corvallis, Oregon, to take pictures. Henderson asked the journalists whether they wanted to remove the helicopter door, a common practice that makes it easier to photograph from the air. The journalists said removal of the door would not be necessary.

Once over the train site, however, the newsmen requested Henderson to land the aircraft, apparently because they were not getting the kind of pictures they wanted from the air.…