News
Helicopter Pilot Who Crashed on NYC Skyscraper Shouldn’t Have Been in the Air, FAA says
The pilot who died when his helicopter crash-landed on top of a New York City skyscraper was not licensed to fly in foul weather, the Federal Aviation Administration said Tuesday.
Published
4 years agoon

Timothy McCormack did not have the required certificate that would have allowed him to legally fly in poor visibility conditions and rely on instruments.
The pilot who died when his helicopter crash-landed on top of a New York City skyscraper was not licensed to fly in foul weather, the Federal Aviation Administration said Tuesday.
Timothy McCormack did not have the required certificate that would have allowed him to legally fly when the visibility was less than 3 miles and where he could use the instruments on his chopper to guide him through the gloom and rain that enveloped Manhattan on Monday, an FAA spokeswoman said.
The development came as National Transportation Safety Board investigators were trying to pinpoint what caused the deadly helicopter crash in Midtown Manhattan.
“Should the helicopter have been flying, I don’t know yet,” NTSB Air Safety Investigator Doug Brazy said at a press conference.
Brazy said they have questioned the passenger McCormack flew from Westchester County to Manhattan a few hours before the crash who told them it was an uneventful flight. He said McCormack was not in touch with air traffic controllers and that they are still trying to confirm reports the pilot made a radio call before the chopper went down on the rooftop of the building, which did not have a heliport.
McCormack was a veteran pilot but he was not “instrument rated,” said the spokeswoman, who declined to comment further and directed inquiries to the NTSB, which is expected to provide an update later Tuesday.
Al Yurman, a former air safety investigator with the board, said in an interview that federal regulators require all pilots to be instrument-rated when flying during the kind of bad weather that descended on New York City on Monday.
They must file a flight plan with air traffic controllers, he said, and they must know how to use a slate of instruments that can tell them what direction the aircraft is flying, for instance, or whether its wings and nose are level.
Without those instruments, flying in heavy clouds can cause “spatial disorientation,” Yurman said.
“It’s like putting a blindfold on,” he said. “Turn yourself around three times and see if you know where you are.”
The cloud ceiling at the time of the crash was 600 feet — or roughly the height of a 55 or 60-story building. The roof of the building on 7th Avenue that McCormack barreled into was 54 stories, fire officials said.
A lawyer for the company the helicopter is registered to, American Continental Properties, did not respond to requests for comment.
Paul Dudley, manager of the airport where McCormack was apparently returning to, in Linden, New Jersey, did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday about the certification question.
But on Monday, Dudley described McCormack as an experienced and competent pilot — someone who was likely “overwhelmed” by the weather or a mechanical issue.
A review of FAA records shows that McCormack was a certified instructor and commercial pilot. The records also indicate that in October 2014, the helicopter he was piloting on a sightseeing tour was struck by a bird, causing minor scratches to a passenger.
McCormack landed the chopper “uneventfully” at a Manhattan heliport, according to the FAA record.
His brother, Michael McCormack, said that he likely “saved many lives” by putting his chopper “on the roof of a building.”
“It is a true act of heroism,” he said.
But the FAA said air traffic controllers “did not handle” McCormack’s flight — another sign that he may not have been following instrument flight rules, Yurman said.
“You have to be in radio contact with air traffic controllers,” he said.
City officials added that the section of Manhattan where McCormack crashed was under a “temporary flight restriction.”
“To go into that area a helicopter would need the approval of La Guardia tower,” Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters Monday. “And we need to find out whether that happened or not. We do not know at this point.”
The crash led Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., to renew a call for banning nonessential helicopters from flying over Manhattan.
In a statement, Maloney recalled other accidents in the city — including a tour flight that crashed into the East River last March, killing five passengers — and said the city could no longer “rely on good fortune to protect people on the ground.”
Barbara Kaiser, an aviation expert with the training and safety firm Rotor World, said that a ban on nonemergency air traffic was a good way to keep pilots without proper training from causing “collateral damage.”
“It could have been a thousand times worse,” she said.
New York GOP chairman Ed Cox and incoming chairman Nick Langworthy offered their condolences to the McCormack family.
“We were deeply saddened to learn the pilot who was killed in yesterday’s horrific helicopter crash,Tim McCormack, was the brother to our beloved Dutchess County Republican Chairman Mike McCormack. Tim’s life was cut way too short, but it’s clear he lived his last moments just as he did every day, committed to protecting others,” they said in a statement.
Entrepreneur, contributor, writer, and editor of Sostre News. With a powerful new bi-lingual speaking generation by his side, Sostre News is becoming the preferred site for the latest in Politics, Entertainment, Sports, Culture, Tech, Breaking and World News.

You may like
Three Disney World Employees Among 17 Arrested in Florida Child Sex Sting
U.S. Remembers 9/11 Terrorist Attacks as The Pandemic Changes Tribute Traditions
80 Million Stimulus Check Direct Deposits Have Been Processed. When Will They Arrive?
A Case of Hantavirus Has Been Reported in China. Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Worry.
Amber Guyger Guilty of Murdering Black Neighbor Botham Jean in His Own Home
Man Dies After Contracting Vibrio from Eating Oysters at North Carolina Coast
News
Three Disney World Employees Among 17 Arrested in Florida Child Sex Sting
Three Disney World employees were among the 17 people arrested in a child sex sting operation in Florida, law enforcement officials announced on Wednesday.
Published
2 years agoon
August 4, 2021
Three Disney World employees were among the 17 people arrested in a child sex sting operation in Florida, law enforcement officials announced on Wednesday.
In the operation, dubbed “Operation Child Protector,” undercover officers posed as 13- and 14-year-old children on social media and online dating apps between July 27 and Aug. 1.
The undercovers made contact with each of the suspects before proposing they meet at a location in Polk County, where they were busted.
In total, the arrests led to 49 felony and two misdemeanor charges. Those arrested were aged 26 to 47. All were from Central Florida except for one 33-year-old man from California.
“What you see on this board … are deviants. Incredible deviants,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said at a press conference on Tuesday, motioning to photos of the alleged pervs. “They travel from as far away as Clewiston, Florida. One even came from Los Angeles.”
“Much to their chagrin, instead of meeting with young children, they were met by law enforcement officers who were online undercover posing as children.”
Kenneth Javier Aquino, 26, a lifeguard at Animal Kingdom Lodge at Disney World, was arrested while still wearing his Disney polo shirt and swimsuit, according to the sheriff’s office.
Aquino engaged in an online conversation on social media with an officer, posing as a 13-year-old girl, authorities said. He then asked the “girl” to send photos, and sent her an explicit video of himself, police said.
Aquino told officers he is a Navy veteran and has a pregnant girlfriend.
Jonathan McGrew, a 34-year-old custodian at Disney World, was nabbed by an undercover officer posing as a 13-year-old girl.
McGrew allegedly told the “girl” that he wanted her to come over and have sex with him and his girlfriend, 29-year-old Savannah Lawrence, who also works as a custodian at tourist mecca.
McGrew sent her explicit videos of him and Lawrence performing sexual acts on each other, authorities said.
A rep for Disney World didn’t immediately return a message.
News
China Reports First Human Death from Monkey B Virus
China has reported the first human infection and death in the country caused by a rare infectious disease found in primates known as the Monkey B virus.
The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said a 53-year-old veterinary surgeon who worked in a research institute specializing in nonhuman primate breeding in Beijing dissected two monkeys in March and became ill about a month later.
Published
2 years agoon
July 19, 2021
China has reported the first human infection and death in the country caused by a rare infectious disease found in primates known as the Monkey B virus.
The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said a 53-year-old veterinary surgeon who worked in a research institute specializing in nonhuman primate breeding in Beijing dissected two monkeys in March and became ill about a month later.
He began experiencing nausea, vomiting, fever and neurological issues, and died in May.
Blood and saliva samples were tested and researchers in April found evidence of the Monkey B virus, also known as the herpes B virus.
Researchers said a male doctor and female nurse who were in close contact with the victim tested negative for the virus.
The Monkey B virus is prevalent among macaque monkeys but infection among humans is extremely rare. Since the virus was identified in 1932, just 50 cases have been reported, with the majority of those in North America. Untreated B virus infections in humans are serious, however, with a fatality rate of about 80 percent.
Symptoms include fever, shortness of breath, and progress to more serious complications such as swelling of the brain and spinal cord.
Laboratory workers and veterinarians in close contact with the animals are most at risk as people typically get infected with the virus if they are bitten or scratched by an infected macaque, or have contact with the monkey’s eyes, nose or mouth.
But the virus is unlikely to mutate in a way that poses a problem to the general population. Just one case of human-to-human transmission of the virus has ever been documented.
News
U.S. Remembers 9/11 Terrorist Attacks as The Pandemic Changes Tribute Traditions
Americans are commemorating 9/11 with tributes that have been altered by coronavirus precautions and woven into the presidential campaign, drawing both President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden to pay respects at the same memorial without crossing paths.
Published
3 years agoon
September 11, 2020
Americans are commemorating 9/11 with tributes that have been altered by coronavirus precautions and woven into the presidential campaign, drawing both President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden to pay respects at the same memorial without crossing paths.
In New York, a dispute over coronavirus-safety precautions is leading to split-screen remembrances Friday, one at the Sept. 11 memorial plaza at the World Trade Center and another on a nearby corner. The Pentagon’s observance will be so restricted that not even victims’ families can attend, though small groups can visit the memorial there later in the day.
Trump and Biden are both headed — at different times — to the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Trump is speaking at the morning ceremony, the White House said. Biden plans to pay respects there in the afternoon after attending the observance at the 9/11 memorial in New York.
Meanwhile, Vice President Mike Pence is also due at ground zero — and then at the alternate ceremony a few blocks away.
In short, the anniversary of 9/11 is a complicated occasion in a maelstrom of a year, as the U.S. grapples with a health crisis, searches its soul over racial injustice and prepares to choose a leader to chart a path forward.
Still, 9/11 families say it’s important for the nation to pause and remember the hijacked-plane attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people at the trade center, at the Pentagon and near Shanksville on Sept. 11, 2001, shaping American policy, perceptions of safety and daily life in places from airports to office buildings.
“I know that the heart of America beats on 9/11 and, of course, thinks about that tragic day. I don’t think that people forget,” says Anthoula Katsimatides, who lost her brother John and is now on the board of the National Sept. 11 Memorial & Museum.
Friday will mark Trump’s second time observing the 9/11 anniversary at the Flight 93 memorial, where he made remarks in 2018. Biden spoke at the memorial’s dedication in 2011, when he was vice president.
The ground zero ceremony in New York has a longstanding custom of not allowing politicians to speak, though they can attend. Biden did so as vice president in 2010, and Trump as a candidate in 2016.
Though the candidates will be focused on the commemorations, the political significance of their focus on Shanksville is hard to ignore: Pennsylvania is a must-win state for both. Trump won it by less than a percentage point in 2016.
Around the country, some communities have canceled 9/11 commemorations because of the pandemic, while others are going ahead, sometimes with modifications.
The New York memorial is changing one of its ceremony’s central traditions: having relatives read the names of the dead, often adding poignant tributes.
Thousands of family members are still invited. But they’ll hear a recording of the names from speakers spread around the vast plaza, a plan that memorial leaders felt would avoid close contact at a stage but still allow families to remember their loved ones at the place where they died.
But some victims’ relatives felt the change robbed the observance of its emotional impact. A different 9/11-related group, the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation, set up its own, simultaneous ceremony a few blocks away, saying there’s no reason that people can’t recite names while keeping a safe distance.
The two organizations also tussled over the Tribute in Light, a pair of powerful beams that shine into the night sky near the trade center and evoke its fallen twin towers. The 9/11 memorial initially canceled the display, citing virus-safety concerns for the installation crew. After the Tunnel to Towers Foundation vowed to put up the lights instead, the memorial changed course with help from its chairman, former Mayor Mike Bloomberg, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Tunnel to Towers, meanwhile, arranged to display single beams for the first time at the Shanksville memorial and the Pentagon.
Over the years, the anniversary also has become a day for volunteering. Because of the pandemic, the 9/11 National Day of Service and Remembrance organization is encouraging people this year to make donations or take other actions that can be accomplished at home.
Trending
- USA7 years ago
Search for Gunman Puts Community College of Philadelphia on Lockdown
- ENTERTAINMENT7 years ago
Usher’s Naked Selfie Exposes Too Much Despite Attempt to Censor Image
- USA7 years ago
Hacktivist Group Anonymous Publishes Names of Alleged Ku Klux Klan Members
- Breaking News7 years ago
Developments in Presidential Race, Trump does Terribly at Forum as Clinton shines
- Trending7 years ago
British Woman Shares Image of Herself Before and After Panic Attack
- News4 years ago
‘Only Survivor’ Reveals Truth of Fatal Accident in 1994 Linked to Ricardo Rossello
- MUSIC8 years ago
VIDEO That Time when Lenny Kravitz’s Penis Popped Out on Stage
- ENTERTAINMENT6 years ago
Marxism in Black Mirror, Social Media Reigns