A jaunt above the Grand Canyon on a helicopter or small plane provides an incomparable glimpse into what late naturalist Edward Abbey called “the most sublime place on the planet.”
But for backpackers with sturdy legs and a yen for solitude, the metallic birds are a betrayal of the peace and grandeur a national park owes its visitors.
Now, what had always been an uneasy truce between the two factions is escalating into a pitched battle-one that is being waged from Montana’s Glacier National Park to New York’s Statue of Liberty. The issue: who controls the skies above national parks, and how empty those skies should remain.
Last year, Rep. Patsy Mink, D-Hawaii, introduced a bill that would place strict limits on flights over Hawaii’s Volcanoes and Haleakala National Parks; related legislation by Sen. Daniel K. Akaka, D-Hawaii, and Rep. Pat Williams, D-Montana, is pending.
This spring, stating that increased flight operations at the Grand Canyon and elsewhere have “significantly diminished” the natural park experience for visitors, a joint U.S. Department of Interior and Department of Transportation task force called for suggestions on how to regulate scenic flights above national parks. (The public comment period had been extended to July 15.) Among the possibilities: voluntary flight limits by tour operators, establishment of no-fly zones or times when no flights would be allowed, and incentives for the use of quieter aircraft.
Since March, air tour companies have been required to pay the National Park Service $25 or $50 per flight for trips above the Grand Canyon, and Haleakala and Volcanoes National Parks. The park service relies on air tour companies to report their flights, and according to a park service spokesman, only a handful of the operators have been complying with the controversial new access fee.
The issue of scenic flights above national parks is being addressed in hearings by Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., chairman of the House aviation subcommittee. And sometime this summer, the National Park Service will release a long-delayed study on how helicopter and fixed-wing tours affect park visitors on the ground. The report was commissioned as part of the 1987 National Parks Overflight Act, which eliminated commercial flights over nearly half of the Grand Canyon National Park and limited most flights on the canyon’s popular east end to two narrow corridors.
Much of the controversy over flightseeing trips can be traced to their booming popularity, particularly in Arizona and Hawaii.
Last year, nearly 800,000 of the estimated 4.5 million visitors to the Grand Canyon took commercial air tours. According to the National Park Service, the number of flight operations at the canyon has more than doubled since 1987.
In Hawaii, where the airborne offerings include close-up views of bubbling lava and a remote waterfall featured in the movie “Jurassic Park,” an estimated 500,000 visitors will take flightseeing trips this year-up fivefold since 1984.
That kind of explosive growth translates to “basic chaos,” says Honolulu resident Denise Antolini, a staff attorney for the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund. The non-profit organization, which represents a coalition of 13 Hawaiian environmental and community groups, has urged the Federal Aviation Administration to ban scenic flights over the state’s two national parks and impose a 2-mile altitude above state parks, wildlife refuges and other areas.
In a letter to Transportation Secretary Federico Pena, the Legal Defense Fund cited the April 18 crash of a flightseeing helicopter on Kauai in which one passenger was killed-the 15th fatality in Hawaiian helicopter accidents since 1992.
Industry spokesmen say they’ve established their own stringent flight guidelines and are working more closely with community groups. The Hawaii Helicopter Operators Association, which says it represents 90 percent of the state’s tour helicopter companies, has established a complaints hot line (808-878-3195). The organization has fired five pilots since 1986 for violating association flight rules (which include flying at least 1,500 feet above populated areas). Since March, adds Dave Chevalier of Blue Hawaiian Helicopters, choppers have voluntarily avoided the rim of Maui’s Haleakala Crater.
Nearly lost in the debate over no-fly zones and “natural quiet” in national parks, tour operators say, is the fact that many flightseeing passengers are physically unable to hike into remote, scenic areas. About 30 percent of the 800,000 annual Grand Canyon air tour passengers are at least 50 years old; about 12 percent are handicapped.
The National Park Service and Department of Transportation task force notes that about one-third of park managers report problems with overflights. But the air tour industry counters that some of those problems can be traced to military, not commercial, aircraft, say air tour spokesmen.
At an average cost of $100 per person for a half-hour helicopter ride, getting a bird’s-eye view of a steaming crater or razor-edged cliff isn’t cheap. And it’s easy to feel at least a twinge of guilt focusing a zoom lens on a pristine swath of rain forest it took a sweating hiker hours or days to reach.
But for many visitors, the swooping choppers and small planes remain as alluring as they are controversial.
“In places like the Grand Canyon, where there is a well-established industry, I don’t think it’s reasonable to have (tour flights) banned,” acknowledges Phil Voorhees, spokesman for the National Parks and Conservation Association. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t go a long way toward improving the situation…and keeping (tour operators) from gaining vitality on the backs of people back on the ground.”
