Neal Boenzi/The New York Times

On May 16, 1977, a rotor blade broke off a helicopter on the roof of Manhattan’s Pan Am Building after the copter’s landing gear failed, causing it to turn sideways. The blade killed five people.

The New York Times reported: “Whirling like a giant boomerang, the blade struck four people on the roof-top madding pad, killing three instantly, then plunged over the skyscraper’s west parapet. About halfway down the gray tower, the blade crashed into a window and broke in two. One piece of the blade continued to fall, whirling onto Madison Avenue and killing a woman.”



The roof of the Pan Am Building (now the MetLife Building), an 808-foot-tall building situated between Grand Central Terminal and the New York Central Building (Helmsley Building), was used as a helipad from 1965 to 1968, transporting passengers from Midtown to the Pan Am terminal at John F. Kennedy Airport. The helipad was reopened in February 1977, just three months before the accident.

The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the accident was caused by “metal fatigue,” which caused the landing gear to fail. The Pan Am helipad was shut down following the accident and has not reopened.

Connect to Today:

An October 2011 Times article noted that 100 helicopters regularly fly over New York City, whisking corporate executives, shuttling sightseeing tourists, and carrying passengers to airports, which made for an estimated 80,000 takeoffs in 2010. All three New York City heliports are situated along rivers, rather than on building roofs like the former Pan Am helipad.

The article added: “Helicopters have long had a cranky relationship with some of the city’s populace and politicians, who deplore their noise, emissions and what seems to be an unsettling tendency to end up in the water. And indeed, a group of politicians on Wednesday called for a ban on the flying of tourist helicopters in Manhattan, even as helicopter operators maintained that it is far more dangerous to drive in New York.”

Though there may be fewer safety risks these days, in your opinion should nonessential and tourist helicopters be allowed to fly over New York City, or any other large city? What about tourist sites, like the Grand Canyon? Why or why not? What transportation alternatives do you think we should consider as we look to decrease air and noise pollution in the future?



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