Traffic, Complaints Soared After Court Tossed Curfews

The East Hampton Town Board collectively denounced the increase in takeoffs and landings at East Hampton Airport in a press release issued last Thursday, calling a 29-percent increase in helicopter flights between 2016 and last year a direct consequence of a federal Court of Appeals’ November 2016 ruling that the town could not independently enact the curfews and limits it had set the previous year. 

A mandatory curfew from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., and one from 8 p.m. to 9 a.m. directed at aircraft, including helicopters, deemed noisy, were in effect from July 2015 until the court’s ruling. Complaints by East Hampton and Southampton Town residents living under flight paths to and from the airport have soared since then. 

According to statistics in an Aug. 8 report on last year’s airport operations by Councilwoman Sylvia Overby and Councilman Jeff Bragman, the board’s co-liaisons to the airport, the volume of takeoffs and landings was relatively stable from 2014 through 2016. But 2017 saw a 7-percent increase in operations over the previous year, or 27,546 operations versus 25,836. Operations are calculated by doubling the number of reported landings. 

In enacting its curfews, according to last Thursday’s release, the board had relied on written statements from the Federal Aviation Administration to then-Representative Tim Bishop stating that once federal grant assurances expired in 2014 the town, as the airport’s proprietor, was authorized to adopt noise restrictions. But due to the appeals court’s decision, East Hampton Town  must complete an analysis known as a Part 161 study in order to propose and enact noise or operational restrictions on aircraft. That process is ongoing. 

The board’s statement followed a communication from the Eastern Region Helicopter Council to its members stating that the southern route to the

airport was unavailable due to overcrowding of different aircraft types. That statement, which was inaccurate, nonetheless upset what had been a balance between southern and northern flight paths. But those paths are voluntary, Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said last week, because the town has no authority to mandate them. 

At the board’s meeting at the Montauk Firehouse on Tuesday, Ms. Overby told her colleagues that “We’re looking for noise abatement maps to continue to be used so our constituents here, and those on the North Fork, get some relief during summer,” when airport operations are at a peak. 

Mr. Bragman suggested that the board summon Jeff Smith, chairman of the Eastern Region Helicopter Council, to speak to residents at a meeting of the board so that they are informed as to the council’s directives to its members with respect to the airport.