FAA Faces Audit of Helicopter Tour Oversight

Transportation Department’s Office of Inspector General cites the April 2025 crash of a sightseeing helicopter in the Hudson River.

Jack Daleo

Wednesday, November 04, 2026 at 12:00 PM ET

Verified

Edited By:

Travis Tingle

OIG cites the April 2025 crash of a Bell 206 helicopter, similar to the one above, in its announcement of the audit. [Credit: Shutterstock]

Key Takeaways:

The U.S. Transportation’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) is auditing the FAA’s safety oversight of aerial helicopter tours, citing longstanding concerns and at least 58 crashes since 2008, 11 of them fatal.
A key focus of the audit is a regulatory "loophole" that permits certain helicopter flights, including some tours, to operate under less stringent Part 91 safety rules rather than the intended Part 136 commercial standards.
This audit follows previous calls from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to close this loophole and an FAA report highlighting fragmented and contradictory regulations for commercial air tour operators.

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The U.S. Transportation’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) plans to audit the FAA’s safety oversight of aerial helicopter tours this month.

According to an announcement Tuesday, the audit will focus in part on the FAA’s awareness of a “loophole” that permits certain helicopter flights to be operated under standards less stringent than those intended for Part 136 operations. The work will be conducted at the agency’s headquarters as well as certain Flight Standards District Offices (FSDOs), which are responsible for overseeing the multimillion-dollar commercial helicopter air tour industry.