New FAA regulations require landowners to mark any towers between 50′ and 200′ on their property, as well as include the towers in a new database the FAA is developing.
Previously, towers under 200′ were not subject to any federal marking requirements, according to officials with the National Agricultural Aviation Association.
The new requirements are due to provisions in the FAA Extension, Safety and Security Act of 2016 and the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018.
Under the provisions in these laws, meteorological evaluation towers (METs) meeting the requirements stipulated in the bills must be both marked and logged in to the FAA database. Communication towers of the same size have the option to be either be marked or logged in the FAA database.
The FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 requires this database to be functional by October 2019. The FAA is also finalizing the marking requirements for these towers, but they are expected to be similar to the standards found in FAA Advisory Circular 70/7460-1L.
Officials with the National Agricultural Aviation Association encourage landowners to preemptively mark their towers and voluntarily log towers on their property into the FAA’s Daily Digital Obstacle File (Daily DOF). The Daily DOF is an obstacle database that contains mostly obstructions above 200′, with obstructions below 200′ submitted on a voluntary basis. The Daily DOF gives an obstruction’s location, height, and type of marking (if any). Information on the tower’s owner or property owner is not asked for or publicly given.
Association officials note that since 2008 there have been 22 tower-related agricultural aircraft accidents resulting in nine fatalities. The number of accidents and fatalities is even higher when other low-level operations, such as EMS-Medevac operations, are included.
An NAAA analysis of accidents from 2008 to 2018 across all sectors of general aviation found there were 40 tower-related accidents and incidents resulting in 36 fatalities. The data also shows many of those general aviation aviators did not collide with the main body of the obstruction itself, but the extremely difficult to see guy wires supporting the structure, illustrating the importance of installing high-visibility guy wire sleeves or spherical ball markers, officials said.
North Dakota farmer and aerial applicator Brian Rau has a 96′ RTK tower on his property. Short for “real time kinematic,” RTK towers supplement the GPS systems of automated ground-based farm equipment.
As an aerial applicator, Rau knows the importance of having such towers both marked and logged into appropriate FAA databases, regardless of legal requirements. He added florescent ball markers within the structure’s skeleton soon after it was converted from a communications tower to an RTK tower. This year Rau took the additional step of providing the coordinates of his tower to the FAA’s Obstacle Data Team for inclusion in the Daily DOF.
“Seeing the growth of communication towers in North Dakota and across the county, I knew it was important to both mark and properly log the tower,” Rau said. “Submitting the tower to be included in the FAA’s Daily Digital Obstacle File only took minutes and was well worth a few moments of my time.”
From a safety perspective, being transparent about the existence of low-level obstacles is vital to agricultural pilots and other aircraft flying in the airspace between zero and 400′, such as police and first responder aircraft, aerial firefighters and pipeline patrol pilots, NAAA officials said.
The FAA’s Digital Obstacle File (DOF) provides information about potential obstacles in pilots’ flight path before they take off. Once pilots download the FAA’s Digital Obstacle File or Daily DOF, they can import it into Geographic Information Systems applications, such as agricultural aviation applications.
FAA Advisory Circular 70/7460-1L on obstruction marking and lighting details the ways different types of obstructions may be marked. The document provides specifications on lighting systems, colors and light intensities. As an alternative to lighting, the document also explains tools for the “unlighted marking” of obstructions. This includes paint colors and patterns, as well as specifications for guy wire sleeves and high-visibility spherical markers.
Rau chose the latter option for marking his RTK tower.
“The ball markers seemed the easiest for an existing galvanized tower, and they really improved the visibility of the tower,” he said.
“Aerial applicators have been at the forefront of ensuring a safe airspace for low-flying pilots for years,” said NAAA Executive Director Andrew Moore. “We encourage farmers, landowners and tower companies to familiarize themselves with the dangers of unmarked, low-level towers. Towers in and around productive farmland may prevent a crop from being treated by air if it is too difficult or unsafe for an ag pilot to treat. As such, due consideration must be given to locating any type of tower on ag land. If a tower’s construction is imminent or already exists, it is highly encouraged that preemptive compliance with the forthcoming FAA regulations required by Congress occur.”
In addition to the human cost, a precedent has been established increasing the likelihood that landowners and tower manufacturers could be held financially liable for tower-related accidents, officials said.
In 2014, a milestone court settlement was reached when a group of defendants representing tower manufacturing, wind energy, land-owning and farming interests agreed to pay $6.7 million to the family of agricultural aviator Steve Allen to settle a wrongful death action brought against the tower entities for failing to mark a 197′ meteorological evaluation tower or make Allen aware of its location prior to his fatal collision with the tower in 2011. From eyewitness accounts, it was clear Allen never saw the unmarked tower before he struck it.
Landowners and farmers can submit an obstruction to the FAA’s Daily Digital Obstacle File by emailing the tower’s height and coordinates to [email protected].
It is now almost a year since this article appeared.
When it did, I spoke with our building inspector, our mayor (an ex-pilot) and the cell tower operator, whose tower is on city property, well more than 100 feet tall, and totally unmarked and unlighted. There is a light at the top, but it has not worked in the DECADE I’ve been here . . .
Total disinterest from anyone about doing anything about this.
We’ve been trying to get a traffic light at our only significant intersection here, FDOT has said, and I quote, “Not enough people have been killed there to warrant a traffic light.” Evidently marking towers is the same thing. Not enough people have been killed yet. Maybe it will be like the ELT rule, a Senator or Congressman has to die, and THEN something might get done.
Where do I send in my registration of my 75 ft amateur radio tower to the FAA? Lots of noise you have to do this, you have to do that. Where exactly is the link to the FAA to register my tower. I was told it had to be registered sometime in Sept. Thanks Tom E KX2L
Landowners and farmers can submit an obstruction to the FAA’s Daily Digital Obstacle File by emailing the tower’s height and coordinates to [email protected].
Don’t do it because the FAA says you must do it because it might just save the live of a pilot. As for the difference between tall trees and tall towers, trees are easy to see but a 200’ MET tower is impossible to see from an airplane at 100mph without some kind of marking.
Only requests for obstacle information should be submitted to the email [email protected]. For adding or modifying information to the FAA’s Obstacle Database please submit through the Obstacle Evaluation/Airports & Airspace Analysis platform (OEAAA) which is the body within the agency to evaluate the structure and issue a determination letter of hazard or no hazard.
That link is https://oeaaa.faa.gov/oeaaa/external/portal.jsp
Also, the 2110 legislation is for agricultural flyers and is focused on agricultural lands. The requirements for filing outside of agricultural lands does not fall under the 2110 legislation. It was passed because of the hazards experienced by NAAG flyers and is an effort to remedy the situation; however, the FAA is only responsible for information that it was made aware of and that falls within existing policy. It should be strongly encouraged that owners of agricultural lands make any pilots who are going to fly over their farms be aware of any potential risks, i.e.: guyed wires, small towers, antennas, etc. Please, for the safety of the pilots, do not leave that responsibility to any one other than the person who owns the property and is intimately familiar with it. Safety should be everyone’s concern.
The FAA has as its primary goal to make the skies as safe as possible.
Thank you and may you always be safe in the skies.
The chances of hitting an under 200 ft obstruction away from an airfield are about as likely as getting eaten by a Polar bear and a Black bear on the same day. BUT….how about those drones folks. The FAA will remain a laughable clown car as long as drones are out there without ADB-B on them.
Fortunately people with your level of (Non) understanding are few.
Amen, Mark.
Except I think everyday they become less few and more the norm.
As hams we are regulated by the FCC, not the FAA. I agree with you. If the FCC rules change, then we will comply. Until that time, however, these rules mean nothing to hams as I’ve stated, the FAA does not regulate our activities.
Everyone should note this distinction.
The FCC regulates you as a amateur radio operator and the equipment you use. The tower you use for that equipment is under the purview and regulation of the FAA. You should note the distinction.
John, what you have claimed is simply not true. The FCC regs tell us what to do when our towers are near an airport and they tell us when we need to bring them to the attention of the FAA and when we need to light them. If you read the document, there is no decree that we need take any action in most cases. Where I know live in Indian River County, Florida, I have a place where my pine trees exceed the height of the Aluma 50 ft. crank-up tower I’m putting up and my wire antennas are in the trees roughly ten feet higher than the tower.
Trees are easy to see, towers are not. And the FAA can overrule the FCC if they choose to.
Preposterous! I have a lot 145′ x 145′. In addition to my tower, lower than most of the trees. There is no way whatsoever that a pilot is going to hit my tower without hitting any trees. When the FCC mandates my marking of the tower, I will do so. The article even told us that towers under 200′ were not forced to do the marking. I have no plans to mark either my trees or the tower. It is not mandated.
Personally I have no problem with registering a tower. I am both a Ham Radio Operator and a pilot — and Installed my ham radio tower at an airpark in accordance with FAA and FCC regulations.
The FAA part was to determine “No Hazard to Air Navigation” — either from my tower and antenna structures, or my radio emissions. Once I did that, I followed regulations and registered the tower with the FCC — AND correctly placarded the tower. It involved a bit of work and the cost of buying a specific map for the FAA part. It was the “easy” part of getting my tower approved — the hard part was getting a couple of local officials to realize that they were governed by Federal, State law and municipal law and that their personal viewpoints had no place in in the local permitting process. We got it sorted and Oregon Aviation (NOT the FAA) required me to light the tower — again this was a “personal” decision by the local administrator NOT a federal or state requirement.
So I do NOT have a problem as a “tower user” and and “airspace user” to registering my tower and including it in a database that serves to increase aviation safety.
HOWEVER, the process must be SIMPLE, FREE and TRANSPARENT — ie free from the personal opinions or politics of government employees.
They can make all the rules they want. The problem is that let’s say you own or work at a radio station and you suffer a total power loss at your tower site. So you call the FAA office to report it. The FAA employees I’ve felt with don’t know what to do with the information. So let’s educate the employees at the FAA or stop making dumb rules that nobody at the FAA office cares about.
When the FCC tells me that I must give the information to the FAA, I shall. The article plainly says, through, that marking them for the FAA is only voluntary for towers under 200′. My own property has slash pine trees in excess of sixty feet and the area where my home is has hundreds of them. My crank-up tower is at 50′ and I have no plans to alert the FAA. My county’s permit for the tower is good enough for me.
You should not be below 200 ft above my property law is 500 wtf
Not for applying agricultural chemicals from a crop duster.
Try to keep up.
It’s obvious this is about towers out in the middle of a field that are almost invisible, not about the tower attached to your house that is shorter than the surrounding trees.
REALLY? Are they going to require TREES that are over 50 feet tall to be marked also? I understand the problem with tall towers not being marked but this is ridiculous! The pilot needs to be held responsible for their actions, not everyone and everything that exists on the ground! Just another example of the stupidity of a government agency attempting to shift liability, responsibility and blame to someone else because they have been doing a crappy job. 50 ft? why not go ahead and make it 25 feet? Tall homes etc? Nobody wants to make it unsafe for legitimate aircraft but there needs to be a little bit of common sense applied somewhere!
I will say those guy wires are very hard to see, and can be planted a good distance out from the towers!
We had a Radio Control group that was allowed to use an “Antenna Patch” at RAF Croughton in England. I flew my RC airplane further out than I realized, but didn’t appear to be any where near any tower that were over to the north of where we were flying……. and all of a sudden the airplane did a couple of instant loops on the same spot in the sky and just stayed right there in that same spot in the sky, like something out of the Twilight Zone, it was so unexpected and defying physics…. just hanging there in the sky. NO WAY!
Until we realized that I had run the wing into a guy wire from one of those really tall antennas! The cables were staked out a lot further than we realized. Fortunately the engine was still running, and I was able to keep blipping the throttle to make it swing back and forth, working its way down the cable to the ground, and recover the aircraft.
I can imagine many of the pilots in these incidents and fatalities also thought they were far enough away…..
Big problem also is getting tower owners, tall or not, to fix lights when they go out which is regularly. Law absent inforcement is barely advisory in nature.
Obstructions to Air Navigation have never been considered a priority by the FAA. They have allowed all types of obstructions to be built around airports with little or no concern about the lives of airmen. Just look at the NOTAMS and see that the majority are related to “unlighted” towers. Where is the oversite? By the way, Airport Managers are the last to find out about proposed and approved obstructions near their airports. With all the technology to INFORM those needing to know, what has FAA done to communicate regarding these hazardous obstructions to the flying public. Answer: NOTHING!
But wait! Now that drone flights are being approved by the FAA they wake up! Brilliant! Lives don’t matter, but delivery of Amazon and McDonalds burgers do! Uber, Bell, Amazon, UPS, and others are bigger then any of the GA manufacturers. You figure this out.
IF MET towers must be marked and listed, why do cell phone towers get a pass? This is a problem will big business (Cell phone companies) and government agencies. Why is a cell phone tower less dangerous? Looks like someone in government was rewarded, doesn’t it?
That is why no nothing politicians and no nothing bureaucrats make the rules and they never make sense.
they are lawyers. the like to garble the information to make is sound good.if the voters can’t understand it they vote for it. It must be good. Same with government decisions.
Cell phone towers are clearly marked with lights.
Yet to see a cell phone tower with obstruction lights, unless it exceeded the 200′ rule.
Fwiw, I am in New York, upstate.
As of yet, under 200′ doesn’t require lights.
Maybe the “cell phone” towers that are over 200′ are, but lower – no, not true.
Appears to be relative by location, I live in rural Kansas High Plains locatio. A nearby 400′ cell tower has strobes during the day, and lights at night, so is on that about a 100′, but plenty of cell and PS safety towers have no markings at all.
Basically cell towers are visible and Rohn 25-G towers really aren’t very visible.