135 duty times... again

[Nolife]

I don't understand why most operators do not elect to comply with 135.265 instead of .267?

From the operators perspective, it gives the ability to run the extra hour, or two, with the reduced rest provision under 135.265 (c). As a pilot it only sucks more however.

But 135.261 (b)(2) opens the door to any operator that wants to use it. Just have to get the op-spec amendment.

You get the extra hour but now are limited on how much flying you can do in one week. Unscheduled allows you to fly your butt off.

 

[atpcliff]

Hi!

There is a serious problem with -135 regs, which is why the FAA put a committee together to re-write them. The committee is done, but the FAA has put it on the back burner because of the charter debacle (the crashes where one company booked a trip, called another, who called another, who called another, and by the time they were done no one knew who was responsible for what and a whole bunch of FARs were broken).

-135 doesn't say you CAN extend your duty day over 14 hours but it also doesn't say you CANNOT. It SPECIFIES under what circumstances you can fly over 10 hours, and what happens if you do fly over 10 hours.

It is basically mute on the question of Duty Day, which is why this argument is going on.

There have been many, many people who have flown 20+ hour Duty Days because of this situation.

IF there is an accident, and the FAA HQ gets involved, what your company said, and what your POI said, and what the local FSDO says, has no merit. FAA HQ will decide, and, if need be, a court will decide, and they have the final say.

The above situation is what happened with charter. Many companies said that what they did is OK by the regs, their POI and FSDO approved it. Guess what? The companies got in trouble AS WELL AS the POIs and FSDOs. What they were doing was illegal, and they all got in trouble.

Having the new -135 rules will put an end to almost all of these rule interpretation problems, as they will be much more clear.

To protect yourself, now, the only way to do it is to call fatigue and end the trip. If your company doesn't like it, look for a new job.

cliff
YIP