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WPCNR AIRPORT BLUES NEWS & COMMENT, By John F. Bailey. December 13, 2025:
I can now confirm helicopters fly over White Plains–LOTS OF THEM– now that a person posting on www.citizenstobeheard.com wrote about on December 11
They fly over mine regularly.
Choppers routinely fly over Havilands Manor at varying altitudes and buzz loudly, very loudly on a southwesterly flight path.
The flight paths so many choppers follow contribute to devaluation of neighborhood ambience and disregard for inhabitants’ lives and safety who are living in the cluster of neighborhoods below the choppers’ flight paths.
If a chopper loses controlled fligh, they drop straight down and worse explode–it is a daily threat tolerated by the county and THE FAA.
I believe they should have higher altitudes dictated for helicopters and routes over parks westward or service roads on either side of 287.
Everybody who hears looks up knows the helicopters are routine nuisances but in reality they are a threat to the homes they fly over . They drop when they stop in mid-air and have no glide control to pick a landing. Witness the crash of NYC traffic chopper reporter, Frank McDermott.
i remember vividly when WOR RADIO 710 traffic helicopter pilot Frank McDermott’s traffic copter he was piloting crashed killing him on a day when he was flying in place of Fred Feldman, pioneer of traffic reporting from the air.
The daily helicopter flights over White Plains like clockwork are not wise flight paths. Airplanes can glide into emergency landings, helicopters are dead in the air when the rotoblade stops and down they go
This is how the New York Times reported the accident:
A helicopter operated by radio station WOR as a traffic spotter crashed into the roof of a garden apartment in Queens yesterday evening, killing its pilot, Frank McDermott, and touching off a raging fire. The accident that killed Mr. McDermott, the relief pilot for Fred Feldman, the radio station’s regular flying traffic reporter, apparently took place seconds after the 37-year-old pilot-broadcaster went on the air for a one-minute account of traffic conditions, at 5:27 P.M. It was reported that shortly before the crash Mr. McDermott had informed station personnel that he was having difficulty handling the helicopter in gusty winds.
Seconds before he went off the air, Mr. McDermott was reporting to John Scott on a program called Radio New York that traffic was heavy on the Van Wyck Expressway. Then he was heard to say, “You got it, John.” Apparently he started to say something else, but it was not clearly audible. Then there was silence. Informed of the death of Mr. McDermott, whom he had hired, Mr. Feldman said: “I wish to hell it had been me. He’s got a wife and two kids. I feel the way I did about some friends in the service who got it.”
At least 10 other pilots and broadcasters had died in previous crashes of helicopter traffic spotters.
Although ambulances and rescue units converged on the scene of the fuel-fed three alarm fire touched off by yesterday’s crash, only on relatively minor injury, to a 12 year-old boy, was reported in addition to the death of Mr. McDermott. The boy. Timothy White tripped, breaking an elbow as he ran from his apartment just after the Bell 47G2 helicopter plunged into 20-61 20th Street.
A teen-aged boy said he was on his way home when he saw the helicopter descending. said “It was flipping over,’ Nelson Castro, 14, of 20-41 18th Street, Astoria. Making circles with his hands, he said “The thing was going like this The propeller was broken.”
NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD: THE CAUSE WAS NOT PILOT ERROR BUT SERVICE MAINTENANCE ERROR ON ROTOR BLADE
Federal investigators studying the crash of the helicopter said that sparks were seen coming from the tail of the copter before it plunged into the building. “But we have no indication at the moment that the helicopter began to break up in flight,” said George Van Epps, director of the Eastern Region office of the National Transportation Safety Board.
The NTSB concluded that probable cause of the accident was that maintenance personnel having overtorqued (TIGHTENED) a delta hinge bolt in the tail rotor, changed the pitch change rod bearings controlling ascent and descent angles to fail.
WPCNR comment: This apparent error that cost McDermott his life indicates how sensitive to accident helicopters are due to the slightest mechanical malfunction. When I hear a particularly obnoxiously loud helicopter overhead, I look up because the aircraft is so low. And could malfunction straightdown.
For this reason alone they should not fly over heavy populated residential housing areas, particularly at low altitude which leaves no margin for error. There is a long history of helicopter crashes in the New York Metropolitan area.
Westchester County in its management of the airport the last 6 years has talked a lot about airport noise, and yet has not listened to professional pilots who have advised after extensive examination of radar records of the approach and departure of flights over a number of recenty years advised strongly that take-offs and landings if routed from the west in and out would curtail flight noise of any aircraft taking off or landing from or into the West.
The county since the exhaustive study by two pilots who know something about aviation, the county has not approached the FAA for permission to even allow more flights into and out of Westchester County in the West to Easy or East to West direction.
This laissez fair attitude County politicians paying lipservice to residents’ complaints about noise and installing noise monitors and not doing anything positive is particularly typical of politicians.
But it is also negligent, continuing to allow recent increase in helicopter traffic over residential neighborhoods and of course cities. The evidence is there that helicopters are flying too low. Do air traffic controllers after the choppers depart the airport continue to monitor them? It is a good question. They should. More to the point, new rules and flight tracks should route helicopters along major highways through forested areas…or service road areas or down the Hudson River not cross country.
The first helicopter crash in an any neighborhood of homes anywhere in the county, will find the County Executive holding the usual “Our hearts go out to the families who lost their loved ones in this tragedy” message and the first question from a newsperson will be :
“Why was helicopter flying at the altitude over that neighborhood with side to side houses?”
The answer is the County did not ask the FAA for a change in routing suggested by pilots years ago. Major negligence.
iF the county had pursued this with the FAA, and the FAA refused the county would not be to blame.
But the County has not done that.
In fact the county now wants to build a new Westchester County Airport Terminal. But they also need a longer wider runway to accommodate international jumbo aircraft which businesses want to be able to do. THEY SHOULD ALSO ASK FOR A HOTEL SITE ON THE SITE WITH UNDERGROUND PARKING.
Instead the county continues to appease Connecticut and Chappaqua residents adjacent the airport by not building a new runway, or not putting in new East West takeoff and landing patterns. Not adding flights.
Are helicopters prone to crash.? Yes. They are drones with a person in them.
NBC 4 LAST APRIL DID A REPORT ON HELICOPTER CRASHES AROUND NEW YORK CITY HERE IS THE LIST
2021: A helicopter sustained significant damage during a hard landing at a Manhattan helipad. The pilot and a co-pilot were not hurt.
2019: A helicopter used for executive travel hits the roof of a Manhattan skyscraper in restricted airspace. The pilot is killed.
2019: A charter helicopter goes into the Hudson River and sinks while being maneuvered at a heliport. The pilot escapes.
2018: Five people drown when a charter helicopter offering “open door” flights crashes in the East River . The pilot survives.
2011: Three people die when a helicopter carrying a family outing plunges into the East River.
2009: A sightseeing helicopter carrying Italian tourists collides with a private plane over the Hudson River, killing nine.
2007: A sightseeing helicopter drops into the Hudson River after experiencing a mechanical problem after lifting off from a West Side heliport. Everyone makes it out safely.
2005: A corporate helicopter carrying MBNA Corp. executives falls into the East river after taking off from the East 34th Street heliport. The pilot is seriously injured but everyone survives.
2005: A sightseeing helicopter goes into the East River while trying to take off from the Wall Street heliport. A British tourist nearly drowns.
2004: A WNBC news helicopter hits a building in Brooklyn and disintegrates while covering a story. All occupants survive.
1997: One person is killed and a second is badly injured when a helicopter owned by the Colgate-Palmolive Company falls into the East River after taking off from the 60th Street heliport.
1990: One person dies after the pilot of an Island Helicopter air taxi misjudges the wind during a takeoff from the East 34th Street heliport and flies into the river.
1988: A passenger drowns when a sightseeing helicopter loses power and makes a forced landing in the East River.
1986: An NBC radio traffic reporter dies when the helicopter she is riding in loses lift, hits a fence and crashes into the Hudson.
1985: A passenger drowns when a sightseeing flight operated by New York Helicopters crashes into the East River after taking off from the East 34th Street heliport.