Stop the Chop: Senator Squadron Urges End to All Tourist Helicopter Flights from Downtown Heliport

By on July 13, 2016 7:00 am in Brooklyn Heights, Downtown Brooklyn, DUMBO, Environment, Politics

State Senator Daniel Squadron, along with Congressman Jerrold Nadler, submitted testimony at a July 11, 2016 hearing on whether to extend Downtown Manhattan Heliport’s (DMH) concessionaire agreement with Saker Aviation Service, which operates tourist helicopter flights from the heliport. At stake is whether the concessionaire agreement would be extended through April 2021, with additional short-term renewal options.

The noise and hazards from tourist helicopters have long provoked the ire of many residents in the City, and in this neighborhood in particular, and spawned the protest group Stop the Chop NYNJ. Tourist helicopter flights had been banned at other heliports across the City, which then shifted all tourist flights to DMH. In October 2011, a tourist helicopter crashed into the East River, prompting renewed calls for an end to all tourist flights, to no avail.

In a February 2016 agreement, the City reduced the maximum number of tourist helicopter flights, and ended Sunday flights and flights over land. Not good enough, according to Senator Squadron, who made no bones about his long-held position – that all non-essential tourist helicopter flights from DMH must be stopped. His testimony included the following statements:

As we said at the time of [the February] agreement, reductions are an important and positive step, but an outright ban on tourist flights from DMH is still warranted. Since the February agreement went into effect, we have continued to hear concerns from impacted community members.

Tourist flights are by definition non-essential, and have not been proven to have significant benefit for commerce or safety. However, we recognize the role of DMH for law enforcement, emergency response, and other purposes. Today, both the 30th and 34th Street heliports still operate as heliports without tourist helicopter operations. Without tourist flights, DMH could, and should continue to operate as well.

Ending tourist helicopter flights at DMH continues to have broad support. After the February deal was announced, a broad coalition of elected officials renewed their call for a ban. Even the City itself has previously supported ending tourist helicopter operations. In its Helicopter Master Plan of 1999, it was clear that the City opposed non-essential tourist helicopter operations at City-owned facilities.

In the same February agreement, the City required air quality monitoring, and research into additional noise and emission reductions from the helicopter flights. The first report on these studies is expected later this week.

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  • DIBS

    Why don’t you just ban tourists? SMH

  • CHatter

    Why not indeed? Perhaps start small, just ban the ones from Pennsylvania.

  • AEB

    (Claude, perhaps you want amend the head here as the point is to eliminate ALL tourist flights; by definition, all are non-essential.)

  • DIBS

    Don’t quit your day job.

  • CHatter

    Good idea. Chopper’s not going to fly itself, am I right?

  • DIBS

    Tourist flights have very restricted hours and no Sunday flights or flights over land. Are the whiners so loud and so many that Squadron, in true Democratic style, wants further rules & regulations limiting business? SMH

  • Reggie

    No, the choppers are that loud, even when over the water. Go to Brooklyn Bridge Park on a beautiful Saturday afternoon and the helicopters are queued up over the heliport like subway cars. The noise is continuous and disturbingly loud on the promenade, in BBP, on Governors and Liberty islands. Tourists are wonderful, troll-bait (see comment at top), but the cost-benefit of tourist helicopters is all out of wack.

  • StudioBrooklyn

    That caught my eye too, but it seems Squadron did make a remark to that effect.

  • StudioBrooklyn

    I can’t help but wonder whether helicopter tourism only comprises a small amount of the overhead traffic that we’re actually reacting to. It’s very unscientific but for the most part and especially at hours when a good number of people might reasonably be asleep, unless I’m standing on or near Pier 5, when I hear helicopter noise, I look up and see aircraft that are more likely police-, emergency response-, and generally non-tourism-related.

  • Concerned

    DIBS, The choppers are very loud and ruin the atmosphere of Brooklyn Heights. In true “Republican style” are you so pro-business that you’re willing to ruin the atmosphere and quality of life of the citizens so that a business can make money? Let me guess, you’re pro-fracking in Oklahoma, where fracking earthquakes are destroying people’s quality of life…

  • gc

    The vast majority of helicopters making a racket between 9 and 5, Monday through Saturday, are tourist helicopters. They are quite easy to pick out if you’re watching.

  • DIBS

    I am pro fracking. As far as it “destroying” lives, I’d like to see some support for that. And evidence other than the many debunked youtube videos showing water on fire coming from faucets. I’m also not a Republican.

  • DIBS

    Also, I lived in BH for about 2 1/2 years until 2014 and they never bothered me. I cannot even remember hearing them. I rarely went to BBP and the Promenade so maybe I lack perspective. Maybe I’m not as old and irritable as many. But I lived in NYC for over 20 years and I know neurotic whiners when I see them.

  • Concerned

    Google: Oklahoma fracking earthquakes

  • Concerned

    Things have truly changed around here in the last 2-3 years.

  • DIBS

    I’m back more than a few times a year. No they haven’t.

  • bpelle

    Fracking is a bit of a non-sequitur here.

    Also one technical point of fact is that it isn’t “fracking” causing the earthquakes, but rather the re-injection of brine that is mixed with the oil. Once the re-injections stopped the earthquakes stop.

  • bpelle

    In all fairness, there were a lot of earthquakes when previously there had been almost none. See my above comment though

  • DIBS

    Earthquakes of what scale?? And, they don’t persist. They only occur during certain parts in the process. And, the technology has changed to lessen their frequency greatly.
    No lives were destroyed. Capisci???

  • gc

    Noisy helicopters, the disgrace at Pier 1, the loss of our local hospital, the issues surrounding the sale of our local library, the development issues at Pier 6, the overcrowding at PS 8, the safety concerns at BBP and on Joralemon St are all issues threatening the atmosphere of Brooklyn Heights. Not a particularly pretty picture.

  • DIBS

    “Not a Pretty Picture” If you say so.

  • Rick

    Things really have changed in the last few years.

    We live on Hicks Street, and even here, a few blocks back from the promenade, we hear tourist helicopters so loud that we often have to pause the movie we’re watching and wait for the helicopters to pass.

    We also often hear a loud steady noise from copters on the ground running their engines, sometimes for hours at a time.

    And I sometimes look out our window to see what is causing that noise, and yes, they are indeed tourist tour helicopters.

    There are also noisy police and transport helicopters, but that is part of life in a city. Even news traffic helicopters seem reasonable to me.

    But wanting the tourist helicopters to either stop or be fitted for noise reduction doesn’t seem like whining to this resident, who hears so much needless extra noise so often.

  • gc

    Yes I do say so. What do you say from your perch?

  • StudioBrooklyn

    I noticed that’s true if you’re looking out above the water, but not if you’re looking directly up above the neighborhood. But again, that’s unscientific. Any way to get data on this, I wonder?

  • DIBS

    The tourist ones can’t fly over land.

  • ColumbiaHeightster

    You lived here for 2.5 years, in 2014, and you are really going to argue the point that things haven’t changed here, when that is the universal opinion of almost everyone that CURRENTLY lives here (most of us for far longer than 2.5 years)? Come on, man.

  • StudioBrooklyn

    Intriguing. I suspected as much also. Can you point to a piece of legislature or something to confirm?

    Anyway, I think that if eliminating tourist helicopters does a net good, it should probably be done, even though to be honest I’d love to take a ride myself. Even if they make up 25% of the traffic and 15% of the chopper-related noise in the neighborhood, if their absence wouldn’t quantitatively or qualitatively affect the city’s (or the borough’s) tourism economy, what’s the problem?

  • DIBS

    I think I count three, maybe four people here complaining. Truly representative of the neighborhood. I don’t know; maybe I had better things to do when I lived there than to complain all day on BHB

  • DIBS

    The third paragraph above in the intro story even states it.

  • ColumbiaHeightster

    With an attitude like that, good riddance you’re gone.

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