Whirling Death on a Rooftop

More than 50% of American adults have flown in planes, but the percentage of those who have taken to the air in helicopters is much smaller. One of the most interesting commercial helicopter flights in the country was begun in 1965 by New York Airways Inc., which launched flights to New York airports from the top of the 59-story Pan American Building in midtown Manhattan. For $25, a passenger could board a 30-person Sikorsky S-61 chopper and get to, say, Kennedy International in a mere ten minutes (v. about $16 and 45 minutes by taxicab).

Last week, on a clear afternoon, disaster occurred. Half a dozen people had already boarded Flight 972 bound for Kennedy, and another dozen were waiting in line as the helicopter's five-blade rotor whirled 17 ft. above their heads. Gradually the big blue-and-white helicopter rolled over on its right side. The rotating blades tilted downward, slicing into three male bystanders and badly injuring a fourth, an Italian visitor, who later died. Some of the blades hit the concrete roof and disintegrated, pieces striking people on the walkway; ten were injured. Part of a blade plummeted to the sidewalk about two blocks away, killing a woman pedestrian. The toll: five dead, 13 injured.

Investigators blamed the accident on the collapse of a knuckle-sized strut attachment bracket in the forward right landing gear—because of "metal fatigue." Federal authorities ordered an inspection of the landing gears on all S-61s. New York community groups renewed their denunciation of the skyscraper service as unsafe, though one Washington official argued that a similar accident at a ground-level helipad might have been no less devastating. At week's end New York Airways resumed flights between three local airports, but operations from the Pan Am Building were suspended pending the outcome of the accident investigation.