New York Senator Schumer Offers Safety Proposals for Hudson Air Traffic

Mr. Schumer spoke at a news conference three days after the National Transportation Safety Board recommended major changes to air traffic over the river. The collision, on Aug. 8, involved a single-engine plane and a tour helicopter and occurred in the corridor between Governors Island and the George Washington Bridge, 1,100 feet and below, that is not under air traffic control.

(...) He said the Federal Aviation Administration should monitor all flights, of both helicopters and airplanes, below 1,000 feet and require aircraft to file flight plans. There is no current system regulating flights below that altitude, where they use a “see and avoid” strategy.

Mr. Schumer, a New York Democrat, also urged the agency to quickly adopt a board recommendation to create a pilot training program for commercial sightseeing operations. He called for fully staffed control towers at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey and at other area airports, and for the introduction of technology, available elsewhere in the world, to help make handoffs between control towers smoother, and the enhancement of alarm systems that alert controllers when aircraft appear to be getting too close to one another.