Helicopter had ‘off-the-shelf,’ unapproved harnesses: report
The five passengers who died aboard a sightseeing helicopter that crashed into the East River last Sunday were trapped in store-bought construction harnesses — which weren’t approved by the Federal Aviation Authority, according to a shocking new report.
Tour operator FlyNYON advertises a “proprietary eight-point safety harness system” that keeps its clients strapped to the chopper while they sit in the doorway and snap photos — but the “system” was really just made of “off-the-shelf components” — “a nylon fall-protection harness tethered via a lanyard to the helicopter,” the National Transportation Safety Board wrote Monday in an urgent safety recommendation to the Federal Aviation Authority.
The harnesses used by FlyNYON bear an uncanny resemblance to a $50 product sold at Home Depot, which are marketed to window washers and construction workers, but not to the aviation industry, helicopter magazine Vertical notes
Passenger Eric Adams, who was aboard another chopper that took off at the same time as the doomed helicopter, told The Post the harnesses look exactly the same — except that FlyNYON had attached a knife to the shoulder strap, which were supposed to allow you to cut yourself out in case of emergency.
Manufacturer-installed helicopter seat belts have to comply with federal standards stating “each occupant’s seat must have a combined safety belt and shoulder harness with a single point release” — but the FAA had never evaluated FlyNYON’s harnesses, nor was it required to, because it wasn’t “required equipment,” according to the report.
The unapproved restraints ultimately proved fatal, the report notes.
“Despite being given a briefing on how to self-egress from the restraint and harness systems, none of the passengers were able to escape after the helicopter rolled over into the water,” it says.
“To self-egress from the harness system, the passengers would have had to either cut the tether with a provided cutting tool or unscrew a locking carabiner located at their back. The pilot, who was wearing only the manufacturer-installed restraint system, was able to release his restraints, escape the helicopter, and survive.”
A pilot who used to fly FlyNYON told Vertical his firm quit doing the harness trips because they were too dangerous, calling them “a petri dish experiment waiting for an accident to happen.”
He says the operator provided the harnesses but no safety guidance on them. And although he opted to provide an “extremely intense briefing” to the amateur shutterbugs on board, he still worried something could go wrong.
The NTSB report recommends the FAA ban all “open-door commercial passenger-carrying aircraft flights” that use difficult-to-escape harnesses — something the authority already did last week, but it adopted the report Monday nonetheless.