The tragic crash of a Bell 206-L4 helicopter into the Hudson River near Jersey City has underscored the extensive noise pollution caused by tourist flights in the area. Over the past five and a half years, the helicopter conducted over 8,000 missions, resulting in an estimated $60 million in societal costs due to noise disruption. This figure was calculated based on a long-standing mathematical model that links increased noise levels to reduced property values. Federal regulators historically use a similar valuation to assess the cost of human lives in their safety calculations.
The helicopter that broke apart mid-flight and plunged into the Hudson near Jersey City last week, killing the pilot and a family of five, flew more than 8,000 missions in the New York area during the last five and a half years, according to a flight history database compiled by the aviation consultancy FlightAware.
Virtually all of those 'missions' were tourist joyrides - a frivolity for the holiday-makers on board, but an irritant or worse for the millions on the ground caught in the helicopter's noise field.
My $60 million cost figure originates in an equivalence I posited nearly three decades ago when my lifelong friend and fellow mathematician, Dr. Howard Shaw, and I set about quantifying the noise costs of jet skis.
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