Police Helicopter Flights and Spending Soar in New York City

A Bloomberg investigation finds the NYPD under Mayor Eric Adams is spending more time in the air and taking more chopper flights out of NYC — at a cost.

By Raeedah Wahid Fola Akinnibi Laura Nahmias June 18, 2024

On a windy night last September, a New York City Police Department helicopter headed south from the city’s waterfront hangars into New Jersey and then west to Pennsylvania. The helicopter stopped in Philadelphia and Albany, New York, before returning to New York City seven hours later.

It costs nearly $5,000 to run this kind of helicopter for the four and a half hours it was in the air. Chartering a similar helicopter on the open market could cost just under $20,000. The NYPD won’t say what the Sept. 21 trip was for, but it’s one example of a dramatic increase in activity for the department’s aviation unit under Mayor Eric Adams.

The NYPD in 2023 spent more on operations, took more flights outside of the city and spent more time in the air than in the four years prior. Even the year 2020, when the department’s helicopters seemed a ubiquitous presence during Black Lives Matter protests, saw far fewer flights and less spending than 2023. Helicopters were in the air for 2,857 hours in 2023, a nearly 60% increase over the four years prior. Out-of-city flights also increased nearly 60%.

Last year saw a spike in spending as well; the department spent $12.4 million on its flight operations in fiscal 2023, a 36% increase over the year prior and more than double the level in fiscal 2021, the last full year of spending under the previous administration. The unit regularly exceeds its budget.

The increase in costs has come even as Adams has pushed to cut back city spending overall. If the unit returned to its previous spending levels, there would be enough left over to cover the mayor’s proposed cuts to at-risk youth recreational programming and a mental health response program.

A spokesperson for the city says the aviation unit has been critical as the Adams administration has focused on policing “more safely, effectively and efficiently.” The city attributes the spending increase to required maintenance and training costs and said that it expects fiscal 2024 spending to return to pre-pandemic levels. It did not answer questions about the increase in flights and flight time.

Police use helicopters to provide an eye in the sky, often helping to supplement officers on the ground during events like protests or for search and rescue missions. They are also used for “patrolling sensitive locations such as bridges, ports, and other landmarks; scrutinizing large container ships and other vessels in New York’s waterways; and carrying out a host of counterterrorism assignments,” according to the NYPD.

During the previous mayor’s tenure, the NYPD admitted to using its helicopters to transport passengers and take special guests and dignitaries on rides. But these uses have raised ethical red flags, especially when they have not been disclosed.

To understand the scope of the NYPD helicopter unit’s current operations and paint a picture of trips like the one on Sept. 21, Bloomberg News analyzed five years of flight data — more than 15,000 flight records, talked to former department employees and spoke with aviation experts. The flight records show that many of the department trips left city limits and some followed trajectories that hit multiple city landmarks like the Statue of Liberty, Yankee Stadium, the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center.

Trips like the one on Sept. 21, where the helicopter takes a long loop outside of the city, stops and then loops back, are textbook examples of ferrying a passenger, according to a former high-ranking NYPD officer, who requested anonymity to speak about their former employer. In a statement, the NYPD said it provides aid to agencies outside of the city, “work that can stretch from areas of upstate New York, to Long Island Sound and Connecticut, to Cape May, N.J., and beyond.”

Using the city helicopters to transport administration officials or NYPD leadership is ethically dubious, said John Kaehny, executive director of Reinvent Albany, a government watchdog group. Taking dignitaries and special guests on flights appears to violate the department’s own policies on the use of aircraft, according to filings in a 2017 federal corruption probe.

“These helicopters are not their personal toys,” Kaehny said. He added that public disclosure of trips in city-owned aircraft and clearer rules about their use would be easy ways to ease concerns over misuse. “There’s a clear path — if the mayor wants to take it — towards responsible use of expensive public resources like helicopters.”

When asked about specific flights, both the NYPD and City Hall declined to comment on the purpose of those trips, or whether the helicopters were used by administration officials. A spokesperson for the NYPD said it operates in “full compliance” regarding the use of its aircraft. The helicopters are dedicated to “operational and training use, and official-use travel,” the statement reads.

In 2023, the NYPD took 3,938 flights, a five-year high. That uptick correlates with an increase in flight time — in 2023, the department’s helicopters spent a total of 119 days or 2,857 hours in the air, compared to nearly 73 days in 2021.

The NYPD relies on civilian versions of large military helicopters, specifically the Bell 429 and Bell 412. Both models are heavier than comparable civilian aircraft, including the ones favored by Los Angeles police, and more weight means louder noise, greater fuel use and higher operating costs, according to Philip Greenspun, a pilot and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It costs $1,100 to keep a Bell 429 in the air for an hour, and $1,800 an hour for the larger Bell 412, according to figures from the manufacturer. Greenspun said the actual costs are likely higher.

The NYPD operates at least seven helicopters, equipped with high-powered cameras that have video, radar, infrared and night vision capabilities, allowing operators to see faces or license plates on the ground. Typically, two helicopters are up and patrolling at any given time, meaning trips outside of the city make it harder to react to more pressing matters, according to the former official.

Still, the NYPD has used its helicopters to transport officials to and from events on at least a few recent occasions. A deputy commissioner flew to a gala in Philadelphia in December 2021 with one of the department’s helicopters.

They have also been used to take special guests and dignitaries on rides, which both former officials said isn’t supposed to happen. Three days after the 2021 flight to Philadelphia, one of the department’s pilots made an error and crashed at a downtown helipad while on the way to pick up Australian police officials for a ride.

Neither the NYPD nor the Adams administration proactively disclose the use of city aircraft for transportation.

Helicopter noise is also a nuisance that has increasingly troubled New York City residents. There were 59,000 complaints about it to the city’s non-emergency line in 2023, more than double the level of the year prior. At a mid-April city council hearing to address the growing complaints, New Yorkers of all stripes gathered to discuss ways to deal with noise that shakes apartments, scares pets and disrupts work from home. Their ire focused on the air charter and tourism companies that have proliferated to ferry passengers around the region or facilitate aerial photo-ops of the city, though there was little mention of the NYPD.

Bill Accordino Jr., an attorney who lives in Manhattan’s Battery Park neighborhood, says he’s considered moving from his apartment because of a constant deluge of helicopter noise. He’s taken to checking flight tracking applications whenever he hears one, just to see who the operator is. To him, the NYPD helicopters seem louder than the others that pass by his building. “It rattles the windows,” Accordino said. “If you’re in Battery Park, you’re hearing helicopters the majority of the time you’re outside.”

In California, the Los Angeles Police Department uses much smaller Airbus helicopters for aerial patrols. However, their presence in the sky is near constant in the sprawling city, with at least two crafts in the sky for 20 hours a day, drawing complaints from residents and activists.

“That saturation of the sky and the soundscape with these helicopter noises has been going on since the ‘70s,” said Nick Shapiro, an environmental researcher and professor at UCLA, who has studied the impacts of police helicopters on civilian populations. “It’s an experimental mode of patrolling. It’s expensive.”