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Oregon is a state with a long history of aviation, including being home to the longest continuously operating airport west of the Mississippi.

Oregon is also a center of aviation design, manufacturing, and production, with several large manufacturers including:

  • Precision Castparts, in Portland and Redmond Oregon, which is a fortune 500 company who manufactures precision parts for Airbus, Boeing, GE, Rolls-Royce, and many other leading aerospace companies
  • Garmin AT, in Salem, Oregon, which develops and manufactures advanced aviation technologies including differential GPS, ADS-B, flat panel displays, transponders, and ground broadcast receivers.
  • Vans Aircraft, in Aurora Oregon, which offers homebuilt aircraft kits that are completed at a rate greater than one aircraft per day.

From an operations perspective, the diverse flying environment in Oregon can prove challenging: ranging from a maritime environment on the coast, to the high mountains of the Cascade Range and the Blue Mountains, to the high desert in Southeast Oregon. In addition, the aviation activities in Oregon themselves are diverse: Oregon is a center of aviation training activity, including all levels of flight training, and all types of commercial and general aviation operations, including everything from helicopter long-line operations and aerial fire-fighting, to business jet, air charter and airline operations.

Oregon’s mix of high densities of commercial aviation operations coexisting with general aviation activity can prove difficult, and even dangerous at times.  For example, Portland International Airport has over 300,000 annual operations, consisting primarily of scheduled air carrier operations under 14 CFR part 121.  However, just three miles away, Pearson Field served primarily small general aviation aircraft and operates without a control tower.  The runway threshold at Pearson Field is directly below the flight path of aircraft arriving on instrument approaches into Portland International. Every year, dozens of traffic collision avoidance system alarms are triggered with air traffic control at Portland International as aircraft operating at the two airports fly too close to each other.

Relatively few attorneys that focus on aviation are licensed to practice law in Oregon, and Aviation Law Group attorney James Anderson is one of them. If you or a loved one are involved in an aircraft accident in Oregon, or are involved in an accident that includes an Oregon-based manufacturer, contact James Anderson at Aviation Law Group, for a legal evaluation.