Helicopter noise still disrupting quality of life, task force chairperson says

Residents in eastern portions of Riverhead Town continue to live with unrelenting helicopter noise as the East Hampton-bound helicopters cross the North Fork from the Long Island Sound, Riverhead’s helicopter noise task force members told the town board last week.

There’s no relief in sight as the Federal Aviation Administration just ignores residents’ complaints, said task force chairman John Cullen.

Cullen says he’s written more than 20 letters to the FAA and has never gotten any response. The agency has been unresponsive to the complaints of elected officials and even to a legislative directive to hold public hearings on the issue, Cullen said.

“The FAA is just ignoring everything,” he said.

Cullen, who was accompanied by task force member Elaine McDuffy, said noise from low-flying helicopters disrupts residents’ quality of life.

“On Monday morning from 6:45 to 7:50 I had 14 helicopters fly over my house,” he said.

North Fork residents have been complaining about noisy skies since the adoption of a “mandatory” north shore route for helicopters in 2012, which was intended to keep helicopters over the Long Island Sound from Manhattan eastward, to quiet the skies of the north shore — in Nassau and western Suffolk, where local residents were complaining about noise. But the rule allows helicopter pilots to “transition” over the North Fork as they make their way to South Fork destinations — mostly the municipal airport in East Hampton.

The north shore route actually made the helicopter noise levels worse for North Fork residents by requiring pilots to stay off the coast until they got out east, with the effect of funneling all NYC-Hamptons helicopter traffic over the North Fork, according to local officials.

North Fork residents and officials are asking the FAA to either route all South Fork-bound helicopter and sea plane traffic off the south shore over the Atlantic Ocean, or to require aircraft traveling along the north shore to stay off shore over the Long Island Sound until they are east of Orient Point.

The FAA rule imposing the north shore route was has been extended twice: for two years in 2014 and for four years in 2016. The last extension came without without any public comment period. The FAA decided to extend it on an “emergency” basis, surprising and angering elected officials. It remains in effect until August 2020.

Rep. Lee Zeldin got an amendment to the FAA funding reauthorization bill passed that required the FAA to hold public hearings on the North Shore route in the communities impacted by helicopter flights and to open a public comment period on the route.

The FAA instead held informational forums on the route and did not take public testimony, further angering residents and elected officials. Residents were invited to make comments on the rule. More than 300 comments were received, according to officials. The agency is still reviewing them and preparing responses, an FAA spokesperson said today.

The FAA said the workshop format was “consistent with the purpose of the directive, which is to get feedback from the communities affected by the New York north shore helicopter route.”

In June, N.Y. senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand wrote to Steve Dickson, the president’s nominee for FAA administrator, demanding he commit to addressing helicopter noise before the Senate considered his nomination. The senators were “not happy” with the response they got from the nominee, according to Cullen, who said he’d met with staff members of both senators about the issue in July.

Dickson was confirmed by the Senate July 24 in a party-line vote. But the Democrats’ opposition to Dickson had nothing to do with helicopter flight paths. Dickson, who retired in 2018 at Delta Airlines’ senior Vice President of flight operations, faced scrutiny in the confirmation process over allegations that the airline retaliated against a safety whistleblower while he was a top safety official in the company. The federal agency is currently dealing with questions about its delegation of aircraft approval and inspection work to aircraft manufacturers — something mandated by Congress. The process is under closer scrutiny following the two deadly crashes of Boeing 737 Max aircraft and questions about the approval of the new planes which were found to have dangerous flaws in their automated flight control system.

The FAA had been without a permanent leader since former administrator Michael Huerta’s five-year term ended in January 2018.

Riverhead’s task force members and elected officials are exasperated by the ongoing noise issues and the lack of action by federal regulators to bring relief to Riverhead residents.

Cullen asked the board if the town could ban flights over the Northville tanks for safety and security reasons.

“The whole point of this is we have no control over the sky,” Supervisor Laura Jens-Smith said on Thursday. “That is the purview of the FAA.”

But regulators took action that brought relief to people in Queens and Southold, Cullen said.

“If they’re willing to help the people in Queens, if they’re willing to help the people in Southold, why aren’t they willing to help the people in Riverhead?” he asked.

Town Board members agreed to write to Schumer and Gillibrand asking them to continue to press for changes to the route with the new FAA administrator.

“It’s important that people log in and report these helicopters,” Councilwoman Catherine Kent said, referring to the Town of East Hampton’s airport noise complaint webpage.

Complaints can also be made to the Town of East Hampton aircraft noise complaint hotline: 1-800-376-4817.

Information on how to register a complaint with the FAA and elected officials is posted on the Riverhead Town website.

The website planefinder.net offers information on all flights, including aircraft number, point of departure, destination and altitude, as well as real-time tracking.