Squadron, Millman, Levin call for Tourist Helicopter Ban

By on October 5, 2011 12:36 pm in Environment, Government, News

Following yesterday’s fatal helicopter crash in the East River, State Senator Daniel Squadron, Assemblywoman Joan Millman, and City Council Member Steve Levin, along with other local elected officials, have called for “a complete ban on all tourist helicopters from Manhattan’s dangerous air corridors, including the city’s rivers and harbors.”

According to Senator Squadron:

Yesterday’s tragedy is another clear sign: nonessential helicopters in Manhattan don’t make sense for passengers, pilots, or local residents. My colleagues and I have long called for better regulation of helicopters in New York. There are still many questions about yesterday’s flight. The fact that this helicopter was a privately-run tour from a heliport that was not supposed to run tours shows that today’s regulations don’t work. Simply put, nonessential flights in and out of Manhattan pose too great a risk.

Assemblywoman Millman said:

Yesterday’s unfortunate accident again demonstrates the urgent need to immediately end tourist helicopter tours. We have witness[ed] too many incidents. The City claims these tours generate needed funds, but at what price! Our sympathy for the Nicholson family who lost their daughter Sonia Marra Nicholson in this horrific crash.

Council Member Levin added:

Yesterday’s accident was a horrific and unnecessary tragedy. My deepest condolences go out to all those who were affected by the accident. As our communities have been saying for years, sightseeing and other nonessential helicopters are not just nuisances, they are dangerous. It is time for the city to create a real helicopter policy that protects the safety of both New Yorkers and the millions of tourists who visit our city every year. It is time for a total ban of nonessential helicopters.

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  • Eddyenergizer

    @ Andrew Strauss

    The best synopsis for transportation safety data is found on the table about 3/4 down this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_safety

    As I said earlier, The stats are for all air travel. According to the NTSB helicopter travel has a 30% grater risk than fixed wing aircraft but even at that, the numbers are still safer than car or foot. The exception is the “Per journey” category, however, one is going to take many thousands of more trips by car and foot in their lifetime than they will by air.

    The data in that table can be verified following the following these links:

    http://www.ntsb.gov/trainingcenter/courseinfo/qa_marshall_24may06.pdf

    http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/index.aspx

    http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

    http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_air_carrier_profile.html

    http://www.ntsb.gov/index.html

    http://www.faa.gov/

    http://www.dot.gov/

    http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

    http://www.nhtsa.gov/NCSA

  • Master Of Middagh

    ms elmers- since you posted in another thread how you were glad that the girl died in the helicopter crash the other day, you need to keep your fool mouth shut. Your opinions no longer have any validity to them now that we all know what sort of nasty selfish excuse for a person you are.

    Helicopters are only dangerous in the sense that EVERYTHING is potentially dangerous- like boats, and broken glass and ice cream and yes, even pancakes.

    “We are used to seeing helicopters gun down terrorists and not shuttle vain tourists.”

    Really? You see helicopters gunning people down on a regular basis and this is what you consider to be the primary use and function of a helicopter? This just shows how out of touch with other humans and reality you must be, ms. elmers. Please seek professional help before sharing your pathetic excuses for thoughts with others.

  • Claire

    @BH’er — no one likes the noise from helicopter traffic 9 hours/day, 7 days/week, 40 flights/hour (and increasing)! I’ve contacted elected officials til they won’t take my calls anymore– either they’ve decided this quality of life issue isn’t worth their time, or they aren’t hearing from enough people that it SHOULD be worth their time (eg, City Council hearings on the DMH, anyone?)

    So, unless and until more people start to make enough noise of their own, I keep music cranked up as loud as possible, keep my windows closed even in good weather, and pray for a miracle (but NOT of the helicopter crashing kind).

    Cheers–

  • Eddyenergizer

    To clarify my position. Although, the helicopter noise doesn’t really bother me, I do understand that it is an annoyance for many people and a legitimate complaint. I did not post the stats to defend the tour operators, only to show that helicopters are reasonably safe and arguments for restricting them based on the “danger” they pose are frivolous.

  • zburch

    Calls to 311 are pointless, Everyone effected should mobilize again and picket the heliport. The noise is unbearable to many, and the tourist copters are unnecessary. The arguments “for” them I pretty much assume are people affiliated with the industry. Otherwise, why would you give a rats? If people are unhappy with the noise, they have every right to try to put a stop to it. This is exactly what the residents of the Manhattans West side did to close that heliport. If it doesn’t bother you, bully for you, but unless you are profiting from it personally, why even bother to comment and put down people that are trying to make a positive change in their neighborhood. Some people just can’t help being contrarian trolls.

  • zburch
  • zburch
  • Claire

    The West Side was shut down after litigation that the heliport is within the footprint of Hudson River Park– no such hook with the DMH. But I think it WOULD be helpful to start demanding hearings, since Sternly Worded Letters aren’t worth the paper they’re written on…..

  • ms elmers

    To the Moron of Middagh and Arch Stanton—- piss off!
    You two must work for the helicopter mafia.

  • ms elmers

    “Really? You see helicopters gunning people down on a regular basis and this is what you consider to be the primary use and function of a helicopter?” …says Middaugh, helicopter mafia man.

    Ya really! i watch the news and we are in two wars for years now, in case you haven’t heard. What did we see when Osama Bin Laden was taken out–three helicopters of which one failed even before the mission began—

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlsiLOnWCoI Arch Stanton

    Wow ms elmers, I have chiseled out a nice niche, flaming idiots on the BHB but you are by far one of the dumbest most self absorbed jerks I have ever encountered.

  • Knight

    But she’s persistent at it, Arch. You’ve gotta admire the tenacity.

  • Master Of Middagh

    @ms elmers- Hey there again, miss popularity!

    You do NOT see helicopters gunning down people on the nightly news. You might SEE a helicopter, but they are typically not shown actually firing on people.

    What are they shown doing? Transport, mostly. That’s why a normal human associates helicopters with transport and, outside of a military conflict, for journalism and tourism.

    But you’re a twisted person because you think helicopters are put to their most natural use when they’re used to kill people. You’re so far gone that your mind tells you that you actually see people being killed by them on the nightly news on a regular basis.

    I tried to make that simple enough for you to understand, but when you look at what I write, I’m sure all you can see is people on fire while you vainly try to make out the words,,,

  • Master Of Middagh

    @zburch I don’t think anyone here is saying that the number of helicopters is appropriate or that they aren’t irritating (they mess with my rabbit ears!) but that doesn’t mean we all have to be on board when people start making claims that all helicopters are just too dangerous for humanity to possibly cope with. Disagreeing with that particular point is not trollish. It puts people who are more strongly against the helicopters on notice that the “save us from the falling helicopters!” argument is going to keep some folks away from their cause and they would do better to focus on other associated issues.

  • Adrastos

    going to govenors island is pointless, listening to all the helicopters, is just plain annoying

  • Andrew Strauss

    Eddie and anybody else who reads this thread:

    I just linked to every single one of your links, and not one discussed helicopter safety, and not one addressed your claim that helicopters are only 30% more dangerous than fixed-wing aircraft.

    The wikipedia article does not address helicopters per se, other than insofar as it is included in total air travel, a category which is dominated by fixed-wing craft.

    I will re-iterate the documented fact that helicopters crash, fatally, about once in 100,000 hours of flight (found it on the FAA site as well: http://www.faa.gov/news/fact_sheets/news_story.cfm?newsId=6763), which is a very high number as compared to any other form of transportation (commercial fixed-wing flights have fatal crashes 0.4 times per per 168 MILLION flights http://www.boeing.com/news/techissues/pdf/statsum.pdf). Obviously, we spend less time in helicopters, but that is irrelevant for whether or not it is dangerous.
    Again, whether or not it’s worth the risk, that’s up to the person. Whether or not the noise it imposes on the rest of us is enough to stop it, that I suppose is a political question. But for all of those people reading this thread, please do not be mis-led about the relative safety of helicopters as a means of transportation.

    Over and out.

  • Eddyenergizer

    Andrew Strauss, You have to look no further than your own link to find the 30 percent statistic: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/783633.html
    It is also quoted in several other articles, here’s one more: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1000&message=30744270

    One can play with statistics all day. You are trying to compare only commercial airline deaths vs. all civilian helicopter deaths, leaving out other civilian fixed wing aircraft. that’s not an accurate comparison.

    The bottom line: I agree, Helicopter flights are more dangerous than fixed wing flights. The exact numbers do not really matter as they are clearly not unreasonably dangerous. My point is; it is ridiculous to argue that helicopters are “too dangerous to allow to fly” because you don’t like the noise.

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