Pilot Identified In Fatal Manhattan Helicopter Crash As Calls For Ban Intensify

787 7th Avenue

A manager at Linden Municipal Airport has identified the pilot of the helicopter that crashed into a Midtown building on Monday afternoon as Tim McCormack.

According to NBC New York, McCormack—a volunteer firefighter with the East Clinton Volunteer Fire Department in Clinton Corners, New York, for over 25 years—had just dropped off a passenger at the East 34th Street heliport around 1:30 p.m. and was heading back to Linden, telling workers before he departed that he thought he had a clear path through yesterday's heavy cloud cover. Shortly after taking off, however, he reportedly radioed the helipad to let them know he might need to turn around.

That could explain his flight path: After about 11 minutes in the air, he crashed onto the rooftop of 787 Seventh Avenue (the AXA Equitable Center), which sits just north of 51st Street. Linden Airport, meanwhile, is west of Staten Island. Its manager, Paul Dudley, told NBC that he believes McCormack, an experienced pilot who was very familiar with the area, chose to land on the roof in order to avoid injuring or endangering pedestrians. Footage posted to social media shows a helicopter flying chaotically, cutting dramatically downward and bobbing along in the sky.

When McCormack hit, the building reportedly shook, terrifying occupants. They subsequently evacuated as the helicopter went up in flames. McCormack was the only person on board during the crash, and emergency responders found him dead upon their arrival.

Investigators are still trying to determine what caused McCormack to attempt the landing in the first place, and whether or not the flight was authorized. You can apply for a permit to operate a helicopter in the city without the normally requisite approval of La Guardia Airport Tower, but Mayor Bill de Blasio told CNN that he wasn't sure what had happened in this case. "Something like this should have been authorized, we don't have any indication it was," he said. "We are still investigating to confirm that."

The crash has further inflamed criticism of commercial helicopter flights in Manhattan, with City Council Speaker Corey Johnson questioning whether or not it's responsible to let Uber chopper people downtown passengers to JFK Airport in Queens, a service it plans to launch on July 9th. "Is that really necessary? Is that safe?" Johnson said Tuesday morning.

Commercial rooftop landing pads have been barred in NYC since 1977, when a copter crashed atop the Pan Am building. The non-emergency helicopters that do still operate use three helipads on Manhattan's edges, typically transporting tourists, government officials, and executives. (According to NBC, the passenger McCormack dropped off yesterday may have been Daniele Bodini, former UN ambassador for San Marino.)

Following Monday's crash, Carolyn Maloney—U.S. Representative for New York's 12th District, which includes parts of Manhattan's East Side, Greenpoint, and Queens—said the city is "just too densely populated" and "too dangerous" to justify non-essential helicopter travel. She also reiterated her call for a ban.

"There is absolutely no safe place to land," she said. "If you have a problem, it's not safe to crash in the water, it's not safe to land in the streets or [on] the rooftops."

And indeed, in mid-May, a pilot crashed into the Hudson River after falling just short of the 34th Street helipad. He was uninjured, but as recently as March 2018, five people died when a helicopter careened into the East River off Roosevelt Island. May's water landing also renewed calls for a moratorium on commercial flights.

Governor Andrew Cuomo, however, told reporters at the scene yesterday that helicopters are "an important part of transportation system in New York."

787 Seventh Avenue is closed today, although according to Susan Stolzer, who works in the building, some employees have been allowed in to collect necessary items they left behind during yesterday's evacuation. She does not know when her office will officially reopen.

McCormack reportedly crashed into a setback on the 51st floor, damaging a catwalk, plus rooftop mechanical and window washing equipment, but not harming the building's structure. At least one twisty metal hunk of chopper landed on the street below, according to ABC 7 reporter Josh Einiger, but police had closed the area—42nd to 57th Streets between 8th Avenue and 6th Avenue—to foot and vehicular traffic.