Oversight Hearing

On April 16, 2024, the Committee on Economic Development, chaired by Majority Leader Amanda Farías, held an oversight hearing entitled “Helicopter Noise and Safety”.

Background on NYC Helicopters and Heliports

There are three publicly-owned heliports in the City of New York that are available for public use: the East 34th Street Heliport, the West 30th Street Heliport and the Downtown Manhattan/Wall Street Heliport (“DMH”). There was a fourth public heliport at 60th Street, which the City closed in 1997. The East 34th Street Heliport was closed to sightseeing flights in 1997 when the City evicted the former tenant of the heliport, National Helicopter, and restricted operations to air taxi, general aviation, commuters and military flights.

Of the three available heliports, only the Downtown Manhattan Heliport can operate sightseeing tours. The tours have restricted hours and flight paths and cannot operate on Sunday. Despite this effort to minimize the impacts of helicopters in the city, noise remains an issue. Non-tour and tour flights originating outside of NYC are free to fly over the city’s neighborhoods. Helicopter flights were the reason for 59,127 noise complaints in 2023 as they fly directly over and near the places New Yorkers live, work, and relax. To identify the best policy solutions, it is important to first understand the flight paths and types that originate from each heliport and the relationship these flights have with the resulting 311 noise complaints.

Summary

1. Complaints to 311 for helicopter noise are concentrated near heliports and the common flight paths in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens.
2. Tour flights originating outside of NYC fly over Manhattan unlike tour flights originating from the Downtown Manhattan Heliport.
3. Commuter flights are likely to fly over Brooklyn and Queens.
4. Commuter flights to or from JFK Airport and tour flights from New Jersey are the mostly likely to be associated with a 311 complaint.

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By Nick Montalbano and Chris Zawora

The major heliports in the New York City local area are mapped to the right, including the three publicly-owned heliports in Manhattan:

1. Downtown Manhattan Heliport
2. East 34th Street Heliport, and
3. West 30th Street Heliport

The Downtown Manhattan Heliport and East 34th Street Heliport are owned by the City and managed by the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC). The West 30th Street Heliport is owned by New York State, with oversight by the Hudson River Park Trust (HRPT). Of these three, only the Downtown Manhattan Heliport can operate sightseeing tours.

In addition to these heliports, the NYPD uses Floyd Bennett Field as a helicopter base and there are multiple heliports in the outer boroughs, New Jersey, and Westchester. These include airport heliports and heliports in Kearny, New Jersey. Commuter and sightseeing traffic from these heliports frequently travel over New York City.

While tours from the Downtown Manhattan Heliport are not allowed to fly over land, flights originating from the other NYC airports do not have such a restriction.

Commuter flights to and from the West 30th Street Heliport and East 34th Street Heliport, tours from heliports outside of NYC, and NYPD flights frequently fly over NYC land.

The map to the right shows the paths of all the flights that flew over NYC land or water on May 15, 2023. Each blue line is a flight and the darker shade of blue indicates multiple flights flew on the same path.

There were an estimated 307 flights that went over New York City land or water during that day.

To perform more detailed analysis, we will categorize flights into “tour”, “non-tour”, and “NYPD” flights. Tour flights are those that begin and end in the same heliport. Non-tour flights are those that begin and end in different heliports. Lastly, NYPD helicopters are marked as NYPD flights.

Note that the data and flight categorizations are not perfect, but are useful for a general understanding of the situation.

Source: NYCC Data Team analysis of FlightRadar24 data

The most frequent flight was sightseeing tours from the Downtown Manhattan Heliport. There were an estimated 72 tours, constituting 23% of all the flights over NYC land or water for the day.

Second most frequent was 51 tour flights from Kearny, NJ.

There were 44 non-tour flights from West 30th Street Heliport that landed at JFK Airport, Newark Airport, and other locations south of New York City.

In addition there were 21 non-tours from JFK Airport, which mostly landed at the West 30th Street Heliport and some at the East 34th Street Heliport.

Source: NYCC Data Team analysis of FlightRadar24 data

The number of 311 complaints for helicopter noise rose exponentially from 811 in January 2020 to 7,461 in May 2023.

Each red dot on the map to the right represents a 311 complaint made to the City for helicopter noise in May 2023. Darker red areas indicate that multiple complaints were made from the same location.

These noise complaints are concentrated in neighborhoods in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens that exist near heliports or on common flight paths. The neighborhoods listed below had the highest levels of complaints.

1. Manhattan: Upper West Side, Central Park, Upper East Side, Chelsea – Hudson Yards, Murray Hill – Kips Bay.
2. Brooklyn: Carroll Gardens – Cobble Hill – Gowanus – Red Hook, Prospect Heights / Park Slope.
3. Queens: Howard Beach – Lindenwood, Whitestone – Beechhurst.

Source: OpenData NYC 311 Service Requests