268 Avenida Luis Munoz Rivera, 9 th Floor, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00918

March 31, 2014

US Department of Transportation Docket Operations, M-20 West Building Ground Floor

Room W12-140 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE Washington, DC 20590

Re: Request for exemption to 14 CFR 121.339(a)

Background: Executive Airlines, DBA American Eagle operated a network of turboprop service throughout the Caribbean Islands from a hub in San Juan, Puerto Rico utilizing ATR-72 aircraft from the 1990’s through March 2013. At that time Executive c eased operations, leaving many Caribbean islands without a direct link to San Juan. As a business, commercial, and medical hub for the Caribbean region, San Juan provides the residents of many sma ller islands with services that are not available on their home islands. When Executive operated many of these routes, they did so under an Extended Overwater – Partially Equipped program utilizing the relief available under Operating Specification A013. This allowed them to operate up to 162 nautical miles from shore without life rafts, and to serve the entire island chain with efficient, direct routings.

Seaborne Virgin Islands, Inc. DBA Seaborne Airlines, FAA air carrier S9BA675J began operation on some of these routes from San Juan in April 2013 utilizing Saab 340 turboprop aircraft. These aircraft were designed with a similar mission and systems des ign, and have very similar performance to the ATR-72. Currently the FAA Order 8900 guidance stipulates that OpSpec A013 may be issued only to turbojet operators, which prevents Seaborne from pr oviding the same level of service that was previously offered in these markets. Without relief the carrier is restricted to flight routing within 50 nautical miles of land or is required to equip the airc raft with life rafts. The 50 mile limitation prevents the carrier from practically serving the islands south of Martinique, as the required routing adds additional time and cost while the additional fuel requirement reduces payload capacity to uneconomical levels. The addition of life rafts to the aircraft would constitute a costly burden to the carrier for the certification of a raft installation, additional crewmember training, and raft maintenance. Additionally, the raft installation as proposed by Saab would result in the loss of 4 passenger seats, which reduces the revenue generation potential of the aircraft by 12 percent.

Relief Sought and Justification for Relief: Seaborne Virgin Islands requests relief from the r equirement to carry life rafts, flares, and locating beacons as required by 14 CFR 121.339(a)(2), (3), and (4) for operations over the Caribbean Sea and adjacent areas of the Atlantic Ocean for operations within 98 nautical miles (30 minutes at single engine enroute speed) of shoreline. This deviation would also incorporate 121.339(b) and (c) as these items are secondary to the raft requirement. This relie f would be identical to the relief available under OpSpec A013 if it were currently available to a turboprop operator. This type of operation has previously been determined acceptable to the Administrator as demonstrated by the prior issuance of OpSpec A013 to Executive Airlines.

Equivalent Level of Safety: The requested relief will increase the distance limit of 50 nautical miles from shore to 98nm. There are no procedural or operational changes required with the addition of this deviation. The carrier is already approved for GPS primary navigation under OpSpec B034 and Class II navigation with aPage 2 of 3 single long-range sensor under OpSpec B054. Therefore, no additional flight crew training would berequired for the navigational procedures required by this deviation. Enroute engine failure and driftdown procedures are currently published in the carrier’s approved Company Flight Manual for the Saab 340 aircraft, and are applicable over our current route structure in the same manner that they would apply to operations out to 98 miles from shore. Due to the fact that most of the carrier’s route structure is over water, ditching training, which includes a wet life jacket drill, is already included in both initial and recurrent training through the carrier’s approved FOTM. The scenario-based recurrent training delivered to all pilots on an annual basis includes an overwater engine failure scenario. This presents an instructor-guided review of emergency procedures specific to overwater operations including drift-down and diversion, single-engine enroute operations, and communication procedures for an enroute emergency.

This application package contains an example of the overwater operations manual that would be used for this operation. In order to ensure the highest level of safety, this manual has been designed to cover normal, non-normal, and emergency procedures required for operations up to 98 nautical miles from shore. The allowable operating area is clearly defined and depicted to prevent any confusion. The table of required equipment contained in this manual was prepared through careful review of the carrier’s approved MEL. If any piece of equipment on this list is inoperative the aircraft may not be dispatched on overwater legs more than 50 miles from shore even though it is still legal for dispatch

under Part 121.

This application package also contains an item by it em response from the carrier to each requirement of the Order 8900 guidance Chapter 3 Section 3-737 OpSpec A013 Paragraph G which covers the requirements for approval of a partially equipped over water operations program in order to illustrate full compliance.

The Saab 340 aircraft operated by Seaborne Airlines is a mature design with a 30 year service history of reliable operation and a very low inflight engine shutdown rate. The type’s robust design redundancy ensures that no single failure, including an engine shutdown, would result in loss of navigational capability or other impairment that would prevent a safe diversion. Due to the tropical maritime environment of the carrier’s theater of operation, additional preventative maintenance steps have already been added to ensure continued airworthiness of the carrier’s Saab 340 fleet. There is no reason to expect that an increase in the allowe d distance from shore would have any detrimental impact on the fleet’s safety record.

Finally, it is noteworthy that the carrier intends to conduct overwater operations over one of the least threatening bodies of water on the planet. The Caribbean Sea has an average surface temperature of nearly 80 degrees year round, equivalent to a heated swimming pool. This is warm enough that in the extremely unlikely event of a ditching, hypothermia w ould not be a threat even without the provision of life rafts. Should a ditching occur, search and rescue assets of the U.S., Dutch, and French governments including helicopters and long-range aircraft, are available throughout the carrier’s operating area.

These conditions provide an equivalent level of safety when compared to operations conducted within

50 miles of the nearest shoreline.

Benefit to the Public Interest:

This deviation would allow Seaborne Airlines to provide convenient, non-stop services between the southern Caribbean islands and San Juan, Puerto Rico. This would restore vital interisland services which were offered by American Eagle until 2013. San Juan is the commercial, business, and medical hub of the Caribbean region, and currently these islands are only connected to San Juan via lengthy island-hopping routes or inconvenient connections through Miami. This causes an undue hardship onPage 3 of 3 approximately 1.9 million people in five island nations that depend on the services available in San

Juan.

Request: Seaborne Virgin Islands, Inc. DBA Seaborne Airlines is requesting a deviation from the requirement to carry life rafts, flares, and locating beacons as required by 14 CFR 121.339(a)(2), (3), and (4) for operations over the Caribbean Sea and adjacent areas of the Atlantic Ocean for operations within 98 nautical miles (30 minutes at single engine enroute speed) of shoreline. This deviation would also incorporate 121.339(b) and (c) as these items are secondary to the raft requirement.

Thank you in advance for your consideration of this request for exemption.

Warmest Regards,



# Dani J. Auslander

Dani J. Auslander Director of Safety and Regulatory Compliance

Seaborne Airlines

Petitioner's Contact Information : 268 Avenida Luis Munoz Rivera, 9 th Floor San Juan, Puerto Rico 00918 (787) 946-8150 - office

dauslander@seaborneairlines.com