Cabri G2 helicopters on the U.S. register will lose the ability to fly overwater under commercial rules unless their emergency locator transmitter antenna has been moved outside the cockpit. The Federal Aviation Administration put that into airworthiness directive 2026-19-05, which covers 70 helicopters and takes effect on November 2, 2026.
The reason is a distress beacon that does not transmit as strongly as it should. A weak emergency signal after a ditching could delay the rescue it exists to trigger.
Antenna placement behind the weak signal
The directive, published in the Federal Register on September 28, identifies the unsafe condition as weak emergency locator transmitter signals on both 121.5 MHz and 406 MHz. The cause, in the FAA’s account, is improper antenna installation location: the antenna sits in the cockpit, and the signal it produces there is weaker than expected. The FAA states that this could delay rescue response during an emergency.
It applies to Hélicoptères Guimbal Cabri G2 helicopters with serial numbers 1003 through 1389, excluding serial numbers 1383 and 1388, in all categories. The agency counts 70 of them on the U.S. registry. Hollister B. Thorson, acting deputy director of the FAA’s Compliance and Airworthiness Division in the Aircraft Certification Service, signed the directive on September 17, 2026, under docket FAA-2026-4630.
The part 135 overwater prohibition
Operators must revise the limitations section of the rotorcraft flight manual within 30 days after the effective date. The directive dictates the wording: for a Cabri G2 not equipped with the external ELT antenna, operations conducted overwater under 14 CFR part 135 are prohibited.
Part 135 is the FAA’s rulebook for commuter and on-demand operations, which is why the restriction is described here as covering overwater charter flying. According to 14 CFR 135.1, the part also governs commercial air tours and helicopter air ambulance work. The prohibition is narrower than a grounding: it is written around part 135 flights over water, and nothing in the directive’s quoted language bars private flying or any flying over land.
Optional modification and its price
The cost figures come from the directive’s own estimate, and they are separated into two lines. The flight-manual revision is required of every affected operator, while the hardware work is the choice that determines whether an operator keeps flying overwater under part 135 at all.
The way out is the optional modification, which relocates the ELT antenna from inside the cockpit to an external position under Guimbal’s service bulletin, the same relocation the European directive requires. Australia’s aviation regulator hosts that European directive for operators there, and it describes the fix as moving the antenna installation outside the cockpit. The FAA estimates up to $1,298 per helicopter for it, and $85 per helicopter for the flight-manual revision itself.
The modification is described as optional because the directive does not order it. An operator can instead accept the restriction and keep flying the helicopter on land or in non-part-135 service. The prohibition’s own wording is limited to a Cabri G2 not equipped with the external ELT antenna, so a helicopter fitted with one falls outside it.
A European order that arrived first
The FAA’s step follows a European one. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency’s AD 2025-0282, issued December 12, 2025 and effective December 19, covers the same serial-number range and the same weak 121.5 and 406 MHz signals. It required a flight-manual revision within 30 days and the antenna modification within six months, citing Guimbal Service Bulletin 25-006 A of October 22, 2025, and as an interim measure prohibited operation in hostile environments unless a personal locator beacon is carried in addition to the helicopter’s ELT.
The American path differs in design. The FAA’s earlier proposed directive, scheduled for Federal Register publication on May 7, 2026, put the same part 135 overwater prohibition in front of the public for roughly 45 days of comment and cited a later revision of the service bulletin, 25-006 B. The final directive kept the 70-helicopter count and the $1,298 ceiling from that proposal.
For American operators, the dates are therefore concrete: the directive becomes effective on November 2, 2026, and the 30-day clock for the flight-manual wording runs from that day. Hollister B. Thorson’s signature is dated September 17, eleven days before publication, so operators reading the Federal Register notice on September 28 had just over five weeks before the effective date. The FAA lists the cost of the flight-manual revision at $85 per helicopter, against a ceiling of $1,298 for moving the antenna, so modifying all 70 helicopters at the top of that range would come to about $90,860 in total, by simple multiplication of the FAA’s own per-aircraft ceiling.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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