- Well, there's a renewed push to crack down on non-essential helicopter flights over New Jersey.

Governor Murphy recently urged federal officials to take action, calling on the FAA to ban tourist chopper flights or reroute them away from densely populated cities.

Local leaders, advocacy groups, and some members of Congress are rallying behind the effort, which was sparked after a tragic helicopter crash last April that killed six people.

Our senior correspondent Brenda Flanagan has been following the story and joins me now in studio for more on these latest calls and how the FAA is responding.

Brenda.

Hey, Brianna.

So, residents and advocacy groups who live in Hudson County towns like Hoboken and Jersey City have long complained about the racket and they're worried about the hazards from helicopters that regularly buzz overhead.

The aircraft typically fly at under a thousand feet, mostly sightseeing tours along the Hudson River.

But now there's renewed bipartisan political pushback following the tragic crash this past April when a sightseeing copter broke apart in midair and fell into the river, killing a family of five and the pilot.

A recent meeting of concerned residents and officials focused on rerouting helicopter traffic around residential neighborhoods and dialing down the number of flights, especially those originating from the HHI heliport in Kearney, which is limited by local ordinances.

County Executive Craig Guy claimed the company's not in compliance.

They testified to certain hours that would be the helicopters would fly.

Well, guess what?

They're outside of those that framework that the company testified to.

That's unacceptable.

People should not be waking up and have their kids woken up in the middle of the morning, 6 a.m., 5 a.m., 7 a.m. by these helicopters.

Guy said officials had given the company 30 to 60 days to cut back on helicopter flights, and HHI had agreed to limit most flights to between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. Heliport CEO Jeff Hyman told NJ Spotlight News, "What we agreed to with the politicians in our meeting is what we're doing.

90% of our flights are being flown between the normal operating hours.

He added the rest don't fly that far outside that window and the volume will decrease in winter.

But the county exec isn't satisfied.

We're getting some legal understanding with the town of Kearney as we speak.

And after Labor Day, the town of Kearney will be calling upon the enforcement of that ordinance, whatever that looks like.

All aspects of that ordinance need to be enforced.

Advocacy groups that have long fought the barrage of chopper noise say they feel encouraged by officials' readiness to take action on several levels, especially after verbal agreements with the heliport to reduce the number of flights out of Kearney didn't hold up, according to Corey Davis with the Safe Skies Coalition.

So, you know, we saw that he wasn't even able to, you know, manage those very low expectations.

Also, you know, it seems like there was an expectation that tour flights would end and that, you know, that would be very detrimental to their business model.

This is where we're coming up with money against, you know, the health and safety of the public.

- Now on the federal level, advocates welcome Governor Murphy's August 18th letter to the FAA.

Murphy made three requests, a hard limit on non-essential helicopter flights, safer flight paths and restricted operating hours.

He noted the FAA imposed restrictions two years ago on tourist helicopters at Hawaii's Volcanoes National Park, reducing the number of flights there from more than 11,000 down to about 1,500 a year.

To stop the chops, Nick Wierda believes change is coming, finally.

Across all levels of government, everyone is realizing that this is a major issue that needs to be dealt with.

And it was encouraging, that particular meeting.

And there are many other developments that have taken place over the past couple of months, most recently Governor Murphy's letter as well, that are very encouraging to us who have been suffering with this issue for years now.

And there's also bipartisan action on the congressional level.

Local members of Congress, including Democrat Rob Menendez, who lives in Jersey City, introduced companion bills to address the problem.

One requires the FAA to examine noise and safety concerns from chopper traffic within a 20-mile radius of the Statue of Liberty, a major tourist attraction.

DR. RONAN FARROW, FAA Director of Tourism and Tourism Affairs, New Jersey State University "We know that we have helicopters that fly over some of the most densely populated areas, not just in New Jersey, but the entire country.

These helicopters fly extremely low.

There's not much of an opportunity if they had to make an emergency landing to do it anywhere but on land in a densely populated area.

So, you know, we believe this is a safety issue.

There have been a number of tragic incidents over the last several decades.

And we believe it's the FAA's obligation to make safety the number one priority, especially because many of these helicopters provide non-essential services.

Now Menendez joined three House members from New York, including Republican Nicole Malliotakis and Democrats Jerry Nadler and Dan Goldman, on another bill that would prohibit non-essential civilian helicopter flights near the Statue of Liberty, with limited exceptions.

The ban will have an obvious impact on the current operators.

Greater regulations may be more costly for them, but that is a price they should have to pay to ensure that everyone that lives underneath the air spaces that they are operating in knows that they are doing so in the safest possible way.

Now, officials say they're trying to determine the economic impact of severely curtailing flights out of the Kearney heliport, Brianna.

Yeah, Brianna, I wonder though, what's happening with the investigation into that crash that really sparked a lot of this momentum?

Absolutely.

Well, there's no final report yet.

The National Transportation Safety Board's inquiry could take months.

Witnesses reported loud bangs before the chopper broke into three parts, but there was no black box to record what happened.

None was required.

The company, New York Helicopters, was reportedly troubled, facing lawsuits over not paying some debts.

The FAA ordered them to shut down.

Carney's Heliport, Brianna, hasn't yet replaced them.

Yeah, truly, it was an awful, awful situation.

Brenda Flanagan, thanks so much for this great reporting.

Brianna, thank you.

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