What Should New York City Do About Tourist Helicopters?
In the wake a deadly crash in April, lawmakers have placed new restrictions on non-essential helicopter flights. Can technology offer safer, quieter alternatives?
A trio of helicopters at the Downtown Manhattan Heliport on April 14, 2025 in New York City.
Photographer: Eduardo Muñoz Alvarez/VIEWpress/Corbis via Getty Images
New York is among the world’s most helicoptered cities, exceeded only by São Paulo and followed by Tokyo. I have never been to the former, which boasts 2,200 flights daily. But on a recent visit to Tokyo, I saw only two or three helicopters all day. New York skies seem never free of them. From our studio window at 26 Broadway, I’ve counted as many as seven helicopters flying about the harbor at once.
These aircraft run a gamut of essential services. There are the NYPD units from Floyd Bennett Field, the sleek orange-and-white MH-65 Dolphins of the US Coast Guard, and the occasional brace of dark HH-60s on Air National Guard training flights. Helicopters airlift critically injured patients to hospitals and whisk organs to transplant recipients. They carry out search and rescue operations, support first responders and gather news.