Hawaiʻi helicopter pilots flying through the remote Waimea Canyon area will soon be able to check a ground-based network of video and weather sensors before departure, the FAA said. The new cameras are planned for locations higher and lower in the canyon, with data intended to be reviewed prior to takeoff at Līhuʻe Airport, where Kauaʻi’s air-tour operations are based.
The FAA’s weather camera rollout for Hawaiʻi is meant to address conditions that can change over short distances, particularly in areas such as Waimea Canyon. According to the National Transportation Safety Board’s final findings on a 2019 Safari Aviation crash in the canyon, the accident was linked in part to delays in installing remote weather cameras and to inadequate weather information as visibility deteriorated.
The FAA said the Waimea Canyon cameras are expected to be operating by the end of the year. When they go live, the FAA said the program will raise the total number of weather camera units across Hawaiʻi to 26, including seven on Kauaʻi, out of about 300 systems operating nationwide. The FAA described the effort as part of implementing recommendations the NTSB issued after the Safari Aviation crash, though those cameras would arrive more than four years later than the crash timeline.
NTSB officials have previously criticized the FAA’s pacing on implementing safety reforms for Hawaiʻi’s air-tour industry. In July 2024, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy wrote to FAA administrator Michael Whitaker that the agency remained concerned that “there may be a tendency among some companies or individual pilots to develop norms for accepting increasing weather-related risks — until they encounter a situation from which they cannot safely escape.”
The NTSB’s final report on the Safari Aviation crash found the scenario reflected that concern. The NTSB said in its findings that the accident pilot decided to continue the tour into deteriorating weather and eventually lost adequate visual references before the helicopter struck terrain. Investigators said wreckage was located on a wooded ridge about 3,000 feet above the Waimea Canyon floor and roughly 1/2 mile from the helicopter’s designated route, and that video from another helicopter showed visibility changing from clear to impenetrable within three minutes.
FAA weather-camera manager Cohl Pope said the program’s goal is to place sensors specifically in areas where pilots have “no other weather information.” Pope said the cameras allow pilots to get a look at the weather along the route before deciding whether to take off, including situations where visibility is too low to safely depart.
Pope said the Waimea Canyon cameras will be part of a broader approach to improving safety culture in Hawaiʻi’s commercial air-tour industry. He said the FAA began installing the network across Hawaiian islands in March 2021 and that the system is designed to help pilots make decisions before they encounter conditions they cannot escape.
Pope said he had observed safety benefits in Alaska, where a weather camera program has been operating since 1999. He cited an 89% drop in weather-related aviation accidents in Alaska over a seven-year period after weather cameras were introduced, and said there was a 50% drop in aviation fatalities between 2000 and 2009 following implementation of a range of safety projects in Alaska that included weather cameras, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
In Hawaiʻi, Pope said rollout timing has been influenced by competing FAA funding priorities, and he pointed to $163,000 allocated for the program in the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization budget for fiscal year 2025. He also said the cameras are installed on a platform that houses cameras and electronics powered by two solar panels and that the units use cellular towers to transmit data; he said the FAA does not have a single set cost per camera because installation requirements can vary.
Aviation industry veteran Casey Riemer of Jack Harter Helicopters said the Waimea Canyon cameras would be a “game changer” for local pilots but also “long overdue.” Riemer said he first encountered similar systems while flying in Alaska, and he described a key safety value: many accidents, he said, involve pilots continuing into conditions where they can no longer see where they are going, and he said those accidents would have been prevented if the cameras had been available. He also said pilots and operators have had to rely on informal or unreliable weather sources in the absence of the camera network.
Riemer said he provided input to the FAA on siting the new cameras and expects they will help pilots determine whether they can safely make it around the west side of Kauaʻi, a route used by nine air-tour companies operating there. He described how weather assessment sometimes has relied on “the coconut wireless” and unofficial information from the west side or north side, as well as publicly available webcam data.
He and Pope also acknowledged that the camera systems have limitations. Riemer said weather cameras can be less effective at detecting sudden wind-condition changes, and he cited high winds in Waimea Canyon as contributing to a July 2024 mid-air breakup of a Robinson R44 helicopter, in which three people died off the Nāpali Coast. Pope said the FAA has to work through practical installation challenges, including land lease issues, and he said the weather camera at Līhuʻe Airport was currently offline because of a lease-related issue that required moving the unit.
The FAA’s weather cameras are about the size of a large chest freezer, and Pope said multiple cameras are mounted on a pole that can capture a 360-degree view. The sensors and video footage stream online on a loop that includes temperature and wind speed and direction, and Riemer said the units can be installed in otherwise inaccessible locations such as mountaintops or valleys.
Air-tour operators Island Helicopters and Rainbow Helicopters were asked to comment on their use of the weather camera network but did not reply to emails. The NTSB’s spokesman declined to comment on the progress of the weather camera program in Hawaiʻi.