Skydiving Plane's Crash Highlights Different Standards

Federal crash investigators say one kind of flight keeps slipping through the safety net: the kind you take for fun. After a skydiving plane went down in Butler, Missouri, on Sunday, killing 11 jumpers and a pilot, the National Transportation Safety Board again pressed its long-running warning that many sightseeing and skydiving operations operate under looser rules than other commercial flights, reports Todd C. Frankel in the Washington Post. Such "air tours" often undergo fewer inspections, aren't required to carry black box recorders, and don't have formal systems to track and fix safety risks—even though they carry paying passengers.

The gap stems from an FAA framework that treats most of these flights more like private trips, especially if they depart and land at the same airport and stay within 25 miles. The NTSB has linked this regulatory setup to multiple deadly crashes and urged tougher standards, but a 2024 Senate attempt to force change was stripped from the final FAA bill after industry pushback. Some operators voluntarily meet higher benchmarks, while regulators are now exploring new rules. The NTSB said it doesn't know whether the plane that crashed Sunday had a cockpit or flight data recorder, per KCTV. The agency plans to release a preliminary report in about a month. The full Washington Post article can be found here.