Less than a month after a Spanish family and their pilot perished in an accident, local Congress members recently sponsored a federal bill that would outlaw helicopter tours in New York City.
Reps. Rob Menendez (D-NJ), Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY), and Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) introduced the bipartisan Improving Helicopter Safety Act on May 5th. It would prohibit all “non-essential” helicopters from operating within 20 miles of the Statue of Liberty.
The law was filed in response to the sad crash in the Hudson River on April 10 that killed a tourist mother, father, and their three young children, as well as the pilot. The bill targets flights used for leisure, tourism, and luxury commuting. The statute would become operative sixty days after it was signed into law.
“While we have consistently worked to address the impact of non-essential helicopters on our communities, last month’s tragic crash should be a clarion call for every level of government to take action on helicopter safety,” Menendez stated.
Public safety is directly at risk due to the growing number of non-essential helicopters and the dubious safety records of air tourism providers.
“Along with my colleagues from New Jersey and New York, we’re doing what is necessary to prevent tragedies like this from happening again,” the rep stated.
Under the plan, helicopters used for law enforcement, emergency response, medical, and other teams, as well as those utilized for study, news, and film, would still be permitted to fly across the city.
Days after one of its helicopters was involved in a fatal crash, New York Helicopter Tours, a tourist firm based in the Big Apple, closed. Michael Roth, the CEO of New York Helicopter Tours, told The Post that his company was shutting down at the Federal Aviation Administration’s request.
According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the deadly helicopter broke apart in midair and plummeted into the Hudson on its ninth flight of the day. The helicopter was last inspected on March 1.
US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) praised the FAA’s action following the tragedy, but he also pointed out that “much work remains to be done.”
According to Schumer, the FAA needs to examine other issues regarding the business moving forward and perform additional inspections of tourist helicopter companies.
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The federal measure was welcomed by the grassroots group Stop The Chop, which has been fighting for years to ban the city’s approximately 30,000 tourist helicopter flights due to noise and environmental effects.
According to a statement from the group, the plan is “common sense federal legislation that will, when passed, finally put an end to the dangerous helicopter conditions in the New York metropolitan area.”
Although the regulation won’t go into effect until December 2029, the New York City Council passed a bill last month that will prohibit non-essential helicopter flights from city-owned heliports unless they adhere to FAA noise guidelines.
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At least 38 people have died in helicopter accidents in New York City since 1977, according to proponents of a ban on tourist helicopters, so the tragic event last month wasn’t an isolated instance.
“It was the latest in a long line of preventable tragedies in the New York metropolitan region’s increasingly crowded and poorly regulated airspace,” Nadler stated. “For far too long, non-essential helicopter flights have endangered public safety and shattered the peace of our neighborhoods.
Prioritizing safety and averting such tragedies is something we owe to the victims and to the people who live beneath these flight paths.
