Pilot in 2019 Oʻahu helicopter crash wasn't properly certified, FAA Says

Associated Press

09-04-2025

The pilot of an air tour helicopter that disintegrated in midair over Kailua in April 2019, killing him and two passengers, should not have been in the cockpit that day because the boss who cleared him to fly wasn't qualified to make that call.
That allegation, made by a Federal Aviation Administration whistleblower more than five years ago, was one of two substantiated by FAA investigators in a report published without fanfare in 2022 and recently disclosed to Civil Beat in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
But investigators did not substantiate the whistleblower's broader allegations that the FAA's office in Honolulu failed to enforce safety regulations for air tour companies. Nor does their report say anything about that office's role in granting the operator of the air tour company the authority to certify the pilot working for her.
U.S. Rep. Ed Case, who has made air tour safety a signature issue, hadn't seen the report until Civil Beat asked him to comment on it. He called on the FAA to do a 'more thorough and transparent investigation' of the whistleblower's allegations.
'Without a comprehensive review, there is little chance that those responsible for the agency's failures will be held accountable, leaving public safety at continued risk,' he said in a written statement provided to Civil Beat.
The investigation followed a deadly period for the companies that fly sightseers and adventurers around the islands. Between April and December of 2019, three crashes left 21 people dead: the Kailua accident, a skydiving plane crash in June that killed 11 and a Safari Aviation helicopter disaster on Kauaʻi that December that killed seven.
In the case of the Kailua wreck, a local FAA manager had improperly granted the head of Novictor Aviation the authority to certify her own pilots to fly, according to the whistleblower and the FAA report. Just 10 days before the accident, the head of Novictor determined that the 28-year-old pilot was qualified to carry passengers on air tours. The wreck occurred on the pilot's fourth day of flying tours around Oʻahu.
The FAA's Office of Audit and Evaluation found that no corrective action was required, however. Days after the wreck, an FAA inspector had revoked the owner's authority to certify pilots, and agency staff later verified that the company's pilots were qualified.
That FAA inspector went public several months later with his allegations. Investigative staff of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation deemed his allegations credible, documenting them in a fact sheet released in January 2020.
U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, then chair of the committee, asked the Department of Transportation's Inspector General to investigate.
But that never happened, Civil Beat has learned. Instead, the Inspector General 're-referred' the case to the FAA's Office of Audit and Evaluation in February 2022 – effectively allowing the FAA to investigate itself.
Case questioned how that happened.
'The lack of serious review and the failure to fully probe the causes at the heart of these concerns raises troubling concerns about the accuracy of the investigation's findings,' Case told Civil Beat.
The fact that the agency's internal investigation substantiated two of the whistleblower's four allegations 'highlights a fundamental failure on the part of the FAA to properly oversee an industry that is clearly operating without sufficient oversight,' Case said.
The FAA did not agree to an interview with an FAA official in Hawaiʻi and did not respond to a request for comment on Case's criticism. The DOT's Office of Inspector General didn't respond to a question asking why it referred the matter to the FAA.
Air tours are the only way to see some of Hawaiʻi's most breathtaking features. But weather conditions can change rapidly as pilots navigate the mountainous terrain. There have been 95 accidents and other air safety incidents in the state over the past decade, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
Just last year, the NTSB, which investigates those incidents, pressed the FAA to increase its oversight of air tour operators in Hawaiʻi, particularly in light of what the NTSB says is pilots' tendency to continue flying when conditions deteriorate.
A week later, three people were killed when a helicopter broke up while flying off Kauaʻi's Napali Coast in circumstances similar to those in Kailua.
A Known Problem; A Pilot New To Hawaiʻi
In the Kailua crash, the helicopter broke apart in midair and nose-dived onto a residential street in Coconut Grove, where it burst into flames. Surveillance video showed fragments of the helicopter landing in the neighborhood.
The NTSB determined that the crash occurred after the helicopter hit severe turbulence and the pilot exceeded its recommended airspeed. That speed caused the helicopter's main rotor to oscillate and strike the cabin, quickly destroying it.
The manufacturer has warned pilots that the R44's main rotor can flap dangerously during turbulence. It's a particular risk for aviators in Hawaiʻi, where weather conditions change quickly.
Among the team of investigators at the scene in April 2019 was Joe Monfort, an aviation safety inspector from the FAA's Flight Standards District Office in Honolulu. Monfort, a 20-year Army veteran who retired as a warrant officer helicopter pilot, had been with the FAA since 2009.
The FAA's 2022 report details what Monfort and the other investigators learned about how the pilot, Joseph Berridge, had ended up in control of the Robinson R44 helicopter that day.
Berridge had been hired in New Mexico by Novictor Aviation, which operates as Rainbow Helicopters on Oʻahu and the Big Island, about two weeks before the accident. And Novictor's owner, Nicole Vandelaar — now Nicole Battjes — had just recently certified Berridge to fly in Hawaiʻi.
But Monfort found that Battjes lacked the requisite experience to certify Berridge or anyone else, and that no one had observed her certifying pilots in the 24 months before, as required. Monfort concluded that an FAA official in the Honolulu office had improperly granted her this authority in November 2018.
Monfort revoked it. All the other pilots Battjes had evaluated were re-evaluated by a qualified aviation safety inspector.
The FAA never took any action against Novictor over that issue.
In their report, FAA investigators wrote that those corrective actions were sufficient and that other issues were addressed through administrative action. Among those other issues: Novictor had hired Berridge without checking a national database regarding his driving record. The FAA sent the company a 'Letter of Correction' for that oversight.
John Cox, Novictor Aviation's vice president of safety, told Civil Beat that the company fully cooperated with the FAA and NTSB investigations and that it works closely with the Honolulu Flight Standards District Office.
Report Doesn't Address FAA's Role
Though the FAA report repeatedly says that Battjes was improperly given authority to certify her pilots, it didn't examine who gave her that authority or why.
But a lawsuit filed over the crash shows that FAA officials in Hawaiʻi did discuss that issue, if obliquely. The suit was filed by the parents of crash victim Ryan McAuliffe against Novictor, the estate of the pilot and the U.S. government. The parties agreed to a confidential settlement in June.
In a court filing, an attorney for the McAuliffes wrote that documents showed the government 'repeatedly acknowledged its role in improperly issuing authorizations that contributed to the subject crash.' The filing quoted an email sent by an acting assistant manager at the FAA's Honolulu office in November 2019 in which the employee expressed concern about the best way to proceed with Novictor 'in light of our errors and lack of oversight of the Check Pilot program at Novictor.'
Aimee Lum, an attorney with the Honolulu law firm Davis, Levin and Livingston who represented the McAuliffes, declined to elaborate on the filing.
Monfort's allegations had gone much further than what the manager suggested in his email, saying that the same day he revoked Battjes' authority to certify her pilots, an assistant FAA manager removed him from the Kailua investigation, citing his caseload.
Monfort said that amounted to retaliation; the Senate committee said it corroborated the allegation. The FAA report has nothing to say on the matter.
Monfort also alleged that FAA management had failed to require helicopter tour operators to correct deficiencies in their training programs. Investigators agreed that was true in one case that he had identified in 2018, but didn't agree it was a pattern.
And FAA investigators said they did not substantiate two of Monfort's broader allegations about the Honolulu office's oversight.
One of them was related to a crash that happened eight months after the one in Kailua. Monfort claimed that managers in Honolulu's Flight Standards District Office had prevented him from traveling to Kauaʻi from September through November 2019 to perform 'required surveillance and inspection' of the air tour operator Safari Aviation.
On Dec. 26, a Safari Aviation Airbus helicopter flown by the company's chief pilot slammed into a ridge near Kekaha on Kauaʻi. Three children were among the six passengers who died along with the pilot.
FAA investigators wrote that although there had been confusion over travel arrangements during this period, 'there is no evidence' that managers 'were actively trying to prevent the whistleblower from traveling.'