The West 30th Street Heliport is a

heliport A heliport is a small airport suitable for use by helicopters and some other vertical lift aircraft. Designated heliports typically contain one or more touchdown and liftoff areas and may also have limited facilities such as fuel or hangars. I ...

on the west side of

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

in New York City. The original heliport opened with two landing pads on September 26, 1956, and that December

New York Airways New York Airways was a helicopter airline in the New York City area, founded in 1949 as a mail and cargo carrier. On 9 July 1953 it may have been the first scheduled helicopter airline to carry passengers in the United States, with headquarters ...

began scheduled passenger flights, the first airline flights to Manhattan. It is owned by the Hudson River Park Trust and operated by Abigail Trenk and Brian Tolbert.

Operations

KJRA has one published Instrument Procedures: COPTER RNAV (GPS) 210. Boating traffic in the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

requires care in the approach to the heliport's landing pad. Tourist flights out of the 30th Street Heliport were scheduled to move to

Downtown Manhattan Heliport The Downtown Manhattan Heliport (Downtown Manhattan/Wall St. Heliport) is a helicopter landing platform at Pier 6 in the East River in Lower Manhattan, New York City, New York. History Downtown Manhattan Heliport opened on December 8, 1960 ...

on March 31, 2010, and the heliport itself was scheduled to relocate by December 31, 2012, as a result of a court agreement between helicopter operators and Friends of

Hudson River Park Hudson River Park is a waterfront park on the North River (Hudson River) that extends from 59th Street south to Battery Park in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The park, a component of the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway, stretches and ...

, who took action to enforce the Hudson River Park Act, which banned tourism flights from that location. However, this agreement was voided by state legislation in 2013, and the heliport remains open.

Airlines

Charter

Statistics

Of the flights, 73% are air taxi, 16%

general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations with the exception of commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services ...

, 10% commercial, and less than 1% military.

Accidents and incidents

*On June 25, 1968, a

Brantly 305 The Brantly 305 is an American five-seat light helicopter of the 1960s. It is an enlarged version of the Brantly B-2 which was produced by the Brantly Helicopter Corporation. Design and development The five-seater Model 305 helicopter is based ...

on a sightseeing flight crashed into the Hudson River shortly after takeoff from the West 30th Street Heliport. The pilot and all five passengers were rescued. *On December 31, 1997, an Aérospatiale AS-355 returning from a sightseeing flight crashed into a building at the West 30th Street Heliport. Eight people were injured in the accident. * On July 7, 2007, a Eurocopter EC130 B4 returning to the West 30th Street Heliport from a sightseeing flight had an engine malfunction and made a controlled landing in the Hudson River, deploying its emergency pontoons. The pilot and seven passengers were rescued from private boats. *On August 8, 2009, nine people were killed when a Liberty Helicopters sightseeing helicopter collided with a private plane shortly after takeoff from the West 30th Street Heliport. Both aircraft were operating on

visual flight rules In aviation, visual flight rules (VFR) are a set of regulations under which a pilot operates an aircraft in weather conditions generally clear enough to allow the pilot to see where the aircraft is going. Specifically, the weather must be better ...

References

External links

{{New York City Area Airports Airports in New York City Transportation buildings and structures in Manhattan Heliports in New York (state) 1956 establishments in New York City West Side Highway