Commercial Passenger-Carrying Operations in Single-Engine Aircraft Under Instrument Flight Rules

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is amending the conditions and limitations in part 135 for instrument flight rule (IFR), passenger-carrying operations in single-engine aircraft. The rule will expand the passenger-carrying provisions of the current rule, add equipment requirements, as well as maintenance requirements to monitor engine reliability, and remove the limited IFR provisions of the existing rule for both single and multi-engine aircraft. Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) is the most significant cause of fatal accidents in Alaska and is a serious problem for single-engine aircraft nationally. This action will increase the safety of single-engine, passenger-carrying operations by allowing planned instrument flight in the IFR system and by imposing certain other conditions and limitations.