New York, .- The spokesman of the Council of New York, Corey Johnson, publicly questioned this Tuesday the convenience and necessity of “Uber Copter”, a service of transfer in helicopter between Manhattan and the New York airport JFK, announced before the fatal accident of yesterday of an aircraft against a skyscraper.
“Is that really necessary? Is it safe?” Johnson asked in an interview on the Fox 5 news network, just a few days after the announcement of the San Francisco-based company, famous for allowing people to rent vehicles. with driver.
The municipal spokesman also assessed the need for “so many” commercial flights, as is the case of the helicopter crashed yesterday during an emergency landing in a 54-story building at the intersection of Seventh Avenue and 51st Street.
The one of Johnson is another voice that adds to the one of the New York congresswoman Caroline Maloney, that last night called to the necessity to vetar the flights on New York.
At present, and since 1977, in Manhattan – the central island of New York – only the landing on heliports on the roofs of the buildings is prohibited, after on May 16 of that year a device crashed into a building and It will cause the death of five people, so these aerial vehicles resort to facilities on the banks of the East River and the Hudson River, which bathe the city.
On the other hand, a preliminary report from the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA, for its acronym in English), ensures that the pilot – the only victim of the incident – did not have a certificate required to drive in bad weather conditions, as is the case Yesterday in New York, when the city was covered by a thick layer of clouds and watered by heavy rains.
According to several local media outlets, the 58-year-old man, who barely had been in the air for 10 minutes after leaving a customer on 34th Street and heading back to the neighboring state of New Jersey, did not have a driver’s license in his possession. aircraft when visibility was less than three miles (about five kilometers).
The investigation, which is being carried out by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), is still trying to determine what caused the incident.
However, the fire unleashed after the fall of the helicopter, which spilled all its fuel, caused that much of the fuselage of the ship was consumed, making the inspection difficult.
The preliminary report, according to close investigators, will not be made public for two weeks, although it will not include the cause of the accident. (EFEUSA)
