Limits remain over special events

Thursday, Dec. 20, 2001 | 11:18 a.m.

Except for a New Year's Eve flight restriction over the Strip for general aviation pilots, the skies over Las Vegas were expected to return to normal today.

The Federal Aviation Administration lifted remaining restrictions Wednesday on private planes flying in 30 metropolitan areas, including Las Vegas. Most private planes were grounded in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Only aircraft that file flight plans and that have transponders, which allow air traffic controllers to track them, had been allowed to fly since mid-October. Now all aircraft, including blimps, news helicopters, scenic flights and banner-towers, can get back into operation.

"In respect to air space, we will return to normalcy," FAA spokesman Jerry Snyder, of the Western Regional office in Los Angeles, said today. "But there will, of course, remain the number of restrictions like tighter security at airports that will be part of our new normalcy.

"And we will continue flight restrictions over sporting events like the upcoming Rose Bowl and other events like New Year's Eve over the Las Vegas Strip, where a number of hotels will have fireworks displays."

Major outdoor event coordinators in the past needed to ask for restrictions that prohibited flights lower than 4,000 feet over their events. Under the new restrictions, those prohibitions will be automatic, Snyder said. He said although the skies over Las Vegas could get more crowded, the general aviation aircraft are "not going to add additional volume than before Sept. 11."

In fact, many local news helicopters actually returned to the skies in late November, provided they filed flight plans.

That process, however, made it difficult to cover breaking news stories from the sky because such plans did not call for the craft to hover over one area for long, a spokesman for KLAS Channel 8 said.

"It's pretty much business as usual now," he said.

In 27 of the 30 cities covered by Wednesday's announcement, general aviation pilots are allowed to return to the air under normal visual flight rules. The other three cities -- Washington, New York and Boston -- will have increased access to airspace under Wednesday's order, but some air space restrictions will remain in effect.

The other 26 cities are Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Charlotte, Atlanta, Orlando, Miami, Tampa, New Orleans, Houston, Dallas, Memphis, Kansas City, St. Louis, Chicago, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Denver, Salt Lake City, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and Honolulu.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.