Category: New York

Tailboom chop in the New York City tour helicopter crash

by philg

Friends have been asking for an explanation of the horrific recent NYC tour helicopter crash, in which the machine was seen falling without its empennage (i.e., the tail had been chopped off by the main rotor system). Here are the passengers just before departure:

The weather seems to have been pretty good. The crash was at 3:15 pm, 15:15 Eastern or 19:15Z. Here’s the nearby (LaGuardia and Newark) weather at 1851Z:

KLGA 101851Z 16017G22KT 10SM FEW040 BKN100 BKN140 OVC250 08/M04
KEWR 111851Z 04011KT 7SM -RA BKN010 BKN017 OVC032 08/05

LGA had winds gusting 22 knots, which can generate some turbulence near buildings. Newark had steady winds of 11 knots with light rain and a low ceiling of 1000′ (not a problem for a helicopter that will operate at 500′). If turbulence leads to a low-G condition and the pilot doesn’t react properly, the result can be mast bumping (inner portion of the blades hit the shaft holding up the rotor system), but that common initial speculation seems unlikely in this particular case because the winds weren’t that heavy and a tourist flight isn’t usually the time for intentional rollercoaster-style maneuvers.

“Pilot in Hudson River helicopter crash called about needing fuel before fatal accident, CEO says” (Fox):

“The pilot of the doomed aircraft reportedly radioed about needing to refuel minutes before the helicopter crashed into the chilly waters, according to New York Helicopter Tour CEO Michael Roth, whose company operated the helicopter.”

This points to a more likely scenario (albeit still complete speculation until further data are available): engine stoppage due to running out of fuel followed by a failure to initiate an autorotation. The Robinson R44 has a similar two-blade rotor system to the Bell 206L4 (N216MH) that crashed. Here are some excerpts from the pilot’s operating handbook for the R44 that lay out the accident sequence:

  1. fuel exhaustion causes the engine to quit
  2. the engine quitting causes the rotor system to slow down
  3. the pilot, startled by the engine quitting, does not immediately (within 2-4 seconds) enter an autorotation, a lowering of the collective pitch control that flattens the blades and allows them to maintain speed while windmilling
  4. the retreating blade stalls, partly due to the high angle of attack caused by the relative wind beginning to come from below the helicopter as the helicopter falls, and the rotor system “blows back” due to the lost of lift (explaining this in full requires some understanding of the physics of gyroscopic precession)
  5. the severely tilted rotor contacts and chops off the tailboom

If this is indeed what happened, what can we learn? First, it is a lot easier to do the right thing in a training environment when simulated emergencies (e.g., an instructor rolling the throttle to idle) are expected. Second, being 100 percent vigilant 100 percent of the time is a perfect job for a computer whose job can be to shove the collective down and enter the autorotation even if the human pilot is still startled and frozen. A system like this has been designed, but is not widely available. See “HeliTrak launches R22/R44 Collective Pull Down” (2018), for example.

You might ask how it is possible for an experienced pilot to run an aircraft out of fuel. I was providing some recurrent training to two Brazilian helicopter pilots. Brazil is a huge market for helicopter taxi service due to horrific traffic and high levels of crime (they could use an El Salvador-style clean-up!). We were in the R44 at a quiet uncontrolled airport (6B6) in Maskachusetts doing some pattern work (take off, fly around in a circle, land). I stressed the importance of checking fuel levels and temperatures/pressures on downwind (flying at 500′ above the ground parallel to the runway) and before lifting up or taking off. I did the standard Robinson flight instructor trick of pulling the “gages” circuit breaker (aeronautical engineers can’t spell?). This causes the analog gauges to show 0 fuel, 0 oil pressure, and 0 oil temperature. The pilot flew 3 or 4 patterns without noticing anything amiss (i.e., missed at least checks of the gauges). His pilot friend in the back seat also didn’t notice anything. I asked them what they thought the most common cause of aircraft engine stoppage was. “Cylinder heat temperature too high?” was the answer (supposedly it is fuel exhaustion). I reminded them to make sure to do the pre-take-off and downwind checks. We fly at least 4 additional patterns without anyone noticing a problem. I asked the flying pilot to set the helicopter down on the runway and explicitly asked “How do the gauges look?” He responded, “fine”. His friend in the back seat agreed that nothing was amiss. Nervous myself about the fuel situation, I pushed the breaker back in, but not before noting that 0 fuel wasn’t a great way to fly. (In retrospect, I didn’t have to be nervous because Robinson’s orthographically-challenged engineers wisely put the low fuel light (10 minutes) on a separate circuit.)

Update: I’ve now seen some video, thanks to reader comments, in which the rotor system, still attached to part of the transmission, is also separated from both the tail and the fuselage. That casts some doubt on the above theory, but I will leave it in place as a reminder of how wrong I usually am.

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Replacement Theory is false, New York City edition

by philg

Back in 2023, the New York Times did a story on how Black residents of NYC were gone and immigrants had moved in via a process of non-replacement (see Great Replacement Theory for Black Americans (from the NYT)).

Here’s the latest evidence that Replacement Theory is false (“debunked” according to Wokipedia), but this time expanded to people of all races… “After Pandemic Exodus, New York City’s Population Is Growing Again” (NYT, March 13, 2025):

Fewer people leaving the city and more foreign newcomers have helped erase pandemic losses, new census data shows.

In the depths of the coronavirus pandemic, hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers packed up and fled, raising the possibility that the ravaged city had entered a long-term slide.

New York’s population has yet to fully recover, but new census data released on Thursday reveals that it is finally growing again after a steep drop. It reached 8.48 million in July 2024, up from 8.39 million in July 2023.

The city grew by about 1 percent, gaining 87,184 residents between 2023 and 2024 — largely because of a steady increase in newcomers from other countries — while at the same time fewer residents left for elsewhere, according to the census data.

Native-born Americans on net are continuing to leave New York City. Via a non-replacement process (since Replacement Theory has been proven false), their places have been taken by migrants.

Separately, trust the government’s numbers, unless you prefer some other numbers:

City officials had challenged [official U.S. Census Bureau] figures, saying the number of migrants and other people living in group settings like shelters had been underestimated. More than 200,000 migrants have passed though the city’s shelters since the spring of 2022.

From the NYT, August 2023:

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Could Luigi Mangione be a spokesperson for the New York City Department of Health?

by philg

As of last month, the New York City Department of Health wants the peasants back into masks:

Compliance with this advice doesn’t seem to be high. Non-elite New Yorkers are always in crowded settings and few wear masks (though some wear masks over beards, which is a delightful example of human behavior).

Instead of repeatedly tweeting “Mask Up!” maybe the NYC Covidcrats could hire Luigi Mangione as a spokesperson. Mangione could talk about the critical importance of wearing one’s mask 100 percent of the time rather than 99.9 percent of the time (he might well be free today if he hadn’t dropped his mask a couple of times).

In case the above is memory-holed:

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Economic Reasoning 101 from the New York Times

by philg

“Hailing a Car in Midtown Manhattan is Becoming More Expensive” (NYT, January 5, 2025):

Many of the vehicles that crowd the tolling zone are taxis and cars for ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft.

The new tolls will not fall on the drivers of those vehicles, who are often struggling to make ends meet. Instead, passengers will be charged an additional amount for each trip into, out of and within the zone. (Even before the new pricing began, passengers already paid congestion-related fees of up to $2.75.)

Riding in a taxi, green cab or black car will now cost passengers an extra 75 cents in the congestion zone, which runs from 60th Street south to the Battery. The surcharge for an Uber or Lyft will be $1.50 per trip.

I want to focus on “the new tolls will not fall on the drivers of those vehicles”. Let’s consider Eric Cheyfitz, the Cornell professor who teaches Gaza, Indigeneity, Resistance:

The first half of the course will be devoted to situating Indigenous peoples, of which there are 476,000,000 globally, in an international context, where we will examine the proposition that Indigenous people are involved historically in a global resistance against an ongoing colonialism. The second half will present a specific case of this war: settler colonialism in Palestine/Israel with a particular emphasis on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) finding “plausible” the South African assertion of “genocide” in Gaza.

(There are 476 million Indigenous people in the world, but fully half of the course will be devoted exclusively to 2 million supporters of Hamas, UNRWA, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.)

Prof. Cheyfitz is visiting some pro-Hamas faculty at NYU and is considering taking an Uber for a 15-block trip to a restaurant. His/her/zir/their alternative is walking or taking the subway. Suppose that Prof. Cheyfitz is willing to pay no more than $20 for a car ride before he/she/ze/they will hoof it. If the city imposes an additional $1.50 fee (on top of existing congestion fees, car registration fees, taxes, etc.), doesn’t that reduce the maximum revenue that a driver can obtain for the trip? I don’t see how the money taken by the government can not come out of some combination of Uber’s pocket and the driver’s pocket. Consumers always have alternatives, not only walking and public transit but also deciding to stay put. (And, in fact, one express goal of the fee is to reduce the number of trips that Uber/Lyft customers will take. If successful, doesn’t that mean the tolls actually did “fall” on the drivers?)

As a thought experiment, suppose that the new fee were $1,000. Nearly all consumers would decide to stay put or use public transit or use a personal/family car. With the service priced only for billionaires, there wouldn’t be work for more than 10 Uber/Lyft/taxi drivers in the entire city. With no limit on who can apply for these 10 jobs there wouldn’t be any reason for the job to pay any better than it does now. The impact of a $1.50 fee is much smaller, of course, but I think the analysis works in the same way.

The Cornell class in case it is memory-holed:

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Parallel New York universes

by philg

The front page of the New York Post right now has no fewer than four stories about Daniel Penny, the man on trial for murdering the mostly peaceful Jordan Neely. Penny’s fate is currently being decided by a jury.

The front page of the New York Times right now has zero stories. In the parallel universe of the NYT, Jordan Neely was never killed and Daniel Penny was never put on trial.

Photos from May 2023:

Separately, what are people thinking about the Manhattan murder of Brian Thompson, the UnitedHealthcare CEO? A customer whose relative died after claims were denied for a treatment that, in the killer’s mind, might have saved the relative’s life? A disgruntled former employee? It can’t be an unhappy long-term shareholder. Before adjusting for inflation, the stock is up 100X compared to 30 years ago (outperforming Apple and NVDIA? (tougher to compare with NVIDIA because the company didn’t go public until 1999)):

Related:

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The nation’s smartest voters (New Yorkers)

by philg

We are informed by New York-based media that New Yorkers are highly intelligent Followers of Science and that voters in Arkansas, for example, are stupid. Let’s check out their respective politicians. Arkansans have sent Tom Cotton to the House and now Senate in three elections. Here’s part of Cotton’s Wikipedia biography:

Cotton was accepted to Harvard College after graduating from high school in 1995. At Harvard, he majored in government and was a member of the editorial board of The Harvard Crimson, often dissenting from the liberal majority. In articles, Cotton addressed what he saw as “sacred cows” such as affirmative action [He was an antiracist even in the 1990s!]. He graduated with an A.B. magna cum laude in 1998 after only three years of study. Cotton’s senior thesis focused on The Federalist Papers.

After graduating from Harvard Law School, Cotton spent one year as a law clerk for Judge Jerry Edwin Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

On January 11, 2005, Cotton enlisted in the United States Army. He entered Officer Candidate School (OCS) in March 2005 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in June. He completed the U.S. Army Ranger Course, a 62-day small unit tactics and leadership program that earned him the Ranger tab, and Airborne School to earn the Parachutist Badge.

In May 2006, Cotton was deployed to Baghdad as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) as a platoon leader with the 101st Airborne Division. In Iraq, he led a 41-man air assault infantry platoon in the 506th Infantry Regiment, and planned and performed daily combat patrols.

From October 2008 to July 2009, Cotton was deployed to eastern Afghanistan. He was assigned within the Train Advise Assist Command – East at its Gamberi forward operating base (FOB) in Laghman Province as the operations officer of a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), where he planned daily counter-insurgency and reconstruction operations.

Cotton was honorably discharged in September 2009. During his time in the service, he completed two combat deployments overseas, was awarded a Bronze Star, two Army Commendation Medals, a Combat Infantryman Badge, a Ranger tab, an Afghanistan Campaign Medal, and an Iraq Campaign Medal.

Digression: What are the Iraqis doing now that Americans spent $trillions and tens of thousands of lives (in combat and back at home due to having spent all of that wealth; poverty kills just as surely as war) on “Operation Iraqi Freedom”? Chanting “Death to America”:

Let’s compare to the biographies and activities of the politicians and bureaucrats selected by the nation’s most intelligent people. First, there’s the New York City Lock Doc:

In conversations caught on hidden camera, New York City’s former COVID czar said that he’d organized a pair of sex parties in the second half of 2020, as New Yorkers coped with peak pandemic social isolation. “The only way I could do this job for the city was if I had some way to blow off steam every now and then,” Jay Varma told an undercover reporter with whom he thought he was on a date. In a video compiled from several recordings taken this summer, the onetime senior public-health adviser to city hall describes the two events that took place in August and November of 2020. He also talked about his work promoting vaccination in the city by making it “very uncomfortable” for those who wanted to avoid the shots.

And we also have Eric Adams:

Wikipedia says that Adams started his career as a gang member and collaborated with Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam (“Farrakhan has accused Jews of controlling large sections of the media, the US government and the global economy, regularly referring to these Jews as “Satanic”. He has repeatedly described Adolf Hitler as a ‘great man'”).

Finally, New Yorkers chose Yusef Salaam as a lawmaker on the New York City Council. He was accused of attacking the Central Park Jogger and eventually found to be innocent of rape. WSJ story by the prosecutor:

Although none of the others admitted joining in the rape of Trisha Meili, they admitted attacking male victims and a couple on a tandem bike, and each of them named some or all of the five as joining them. … Mr. Salaam took the stand at his trial, represented by a lawyer chosen and paid for by his mother, and testified that he had gone into the park carrying a 14-inch metal pipe—the same type of weapon that was used to bludgeon both a male schoolteacher and Ms. Meili. Mr. Reyes’s confession changed none of this. He admitted being the man whose DNA had been left in the jogger’s body and on her clothing, but the two juries that heard those facts knew the main assailant in the rape had not been caught. The five were charged as accomplices, as persons “acting in concert” with each other and with the then-unknown man who raped the jogger, not as those who actually performed the act. In their original confessions—later recanted—they admitted to grabbing her breasts and legs, and two of them admitted to climbing on top of her and simulating intercourse. Semen was found on the inside of their clothing, corroborating those confessions.

Mr. Reyes’s confession, DNA match and claim that he acted alone required that the rape charges against the five be vacated. I agreed with that decision, and still do. But the other charges, for crimes against other victims, should not have been vacated. Nothing Mr. Reyes said exonerated these five of those attacks. And there was certainly more than enough evidence to support those convictions of first-degree assault, robbery, riot and other charges.

Americans are supposed to follow their NY-based intellectual leaders when voting. But are the above gentlemen the kinds of people whom the average American wants to give authority to? (Especially important now that government is bigger and far more powerful than ever.)

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Changing Perceptions of Jihad in New York City

by philg

It’s the 23rd anniversary of 9/11, described by Wikipedia as “Islamist terrorist suicide attacks”, and the first 9/11 anniversary since soldiers of the Islamic Resistance Movement (“Hamas”), UNRWA, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad invaded Israel (October 7, 2023).

At least on September 12, 2001, nearly everyone in the New York metro area apparently believed that jihad was bad. It is tough to find a statistic on how many Muslims lived in NYC in 2001, but at least their leadership came out against attacking civilians: “No political cause could ever be assisted by such immoral acts.” (Wikipedia).

Today, there are “1.5 million Muslims in the greater New York metropolitan area” (Wikipedia). Together with progressive Democrats (“Queers for Palestine”), at least some of these New Yorkers now say that attacking civilians as part of an “Islamic Resistance Movement” or “Islamic Jihad” is praiseworthy. “Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters — including A-list actress — shout ‘Long live the Intifada!’, pass out maps of pro-Israel locations to target in NYC” (New York Post, November 17, 2023):

Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered at Union Square Friday – before joining another massive rally near Bryant Park and marching to locations listed on a troubling map that called for “direct action” to “globalize intifada.”

By early Friday evening, the crowd made at least five stops in Manhattan that the Palestinian-led community organization Within Our Lifetime called for followers to target in a since-deleted social media post Thursday.

Outside The New York Times building, one enraged protester holding a Palestinian flag appeared to say “Bomb the New York Times. Bomb the New York Times!”

Oscar-winning actress Susan Sarandon was in attendance and donned a playful Simpsons-themed bomber jacket to the protest, which also called out politicians by name.

She joined the crowd in chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” – which is largely regarded as an antisemitic slogan that implies the decimation of Israel – before addressing the group herself.

“There are a lot of people that are afraid, that are afraid of being Jewish at this time, and are getting a taste of what it feels like to be a Muslim in this country,” she said.

Some of the protesters held a banner that read “By any means necessary” – seemingly implying that Palestine should be freed at all costs, even violence.

The “by any means necessary” slogan presumably includes attacks on Israeli civilians, as featured on October 7, 2023 and, since at least 2001, via rocket attacks from Gaza and Lebanon (the rockets are generally targeted at cities, such as Tel Aviv). “By any means necessary” also includes, much to my surprise, taking and holding fellow Muslims hostage.

How widespread has the support for killing Israeli civilians been? As of November 17, 2023:

The Union Square event is one of hundreds of similar gatherings that took place in New York City and beyond this week, as tensions continue to simmer in the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7 sneak attack on southern Israel and Israel’s subsequent retaliatory bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Uptown at Columbia (France24):

At least New York City, therefore, has been transformed in just 23 years from a place where jihad is condemned to a place where jihad is celebrated. What would New Yorkers do today if a jihad were waged against civilian New Yorkers (targeted in some way so as not to affect Muslim New Yorkers) to “stop the genocide”, for example?

Associated Press video: “Palestinian men, women and children chanted in jubilation after terrorists crashed two planes into the World Trade Center causing them to collapse on Tuesday morning.”

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Was anything new revealed by the New York Democrats’ trial of Donald Trump?

by philg

Some friends who are Democrats have been obsessively and gleefully following the New York trial of Donald Trump. When I asked them what they’ve learned, however, they’re unable to offer anything beyond what was already fairly alleged prior to the trial, i.e., an American got paid for having sex and then the same person got paid some additional money as a result of that sex act. A “dog bites man” story, in other words, since (a) the U.S. has for many years been the world leader in the percentage of GDP devoted to compensating people for prior sex acts, and (b) a ruling party putting a political opponent on trial has been conventional in many nations for more than 100 years.

Readers: Have you learned anything new or interesting from press coverage of this trial?

My dream: A South Park episode in which the entire trial happens in South Park so as to ensure an unbiased jury pool.

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A free preloaded debit card is not “free money”

by philg

“New York City mayor defends migrant debit card program as cost efficient and fraud resistant” (Politico):

The prepaid cards are intended to be used for groceries, diapers, baby formula and other necessities at local businesses. They’ve invited the condemnation by right-wing news media as simply another benefit for people who entered the country illegally and for the hefty contract involved in the rollout.

“There is no free money. These are not ATM cards. You can’t take cash out,” Deputy Mayor Fabien Levy said at the news conference.

For confused seniors who fall prey to all manner of online scams it would be great to have a credit or debit card that could be used only for certain categories of purchases. Last I checked, though, this capability was not available to individual consumers. How did the NYC migrantcrats manage to accomplish it? It seems that a “card program” can be designed in which the cards are limited by merchant category code (MCC, as explained by Stripe). What if a migrant goes to Walmart or 2SLGBTQQIA+-friendly Target and a wide range of products are available? NY1:

The city said the debit cards for new arrivals can only be used at supermarkets, bodegas and at grocery stores, with migrants being required to sign an affidavit that it would only be used for food and baby supplies.

So… the taxpayer-funded cards are “free”, but they’re not “free money.”

Happy April Fools’ Day, especially if you’re a taxpayer!

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No human is illegal, but some buses are

by philg

“In Bid to Slow Migrant Surge, Adams Restricts Bus Arrivals Into New York” (NYT):

Mayor Eric Adams placed limits for the first time on Wednesday on how migrants arrive in New York, pushing back against continuing efforts by the governor of Texas to send tens of thousands of asylum seekers to the city.

In an executive order, Mr. Adams required charter bus companies to provide 32 hours’ advance notice of the arrival of a busload of migrants in the city and limited the times of day at which migrants can be dropped off.

The change, a year and a half into a crisis that has consumed the Adams administration, comes after 14 busloads of migrants arrived from Texas in a single night last week, the highest total recorded since the spring of 2022.

“We cannot allow buses with people needing our help to arrive without warning at any hour of day and night,” Mr. Adams said during a virtual news conference with the mayor of Chicago, Brandon Johnson, and the mayor of Denver, Mike Johnston. “To be clear, this is not stopping people from coming, but about ensuring the safety of migrants and making sure they can arrive in a coordinated and orderly way.”

Companies that violate the executive order face class B misdemeanor charges, which could result in three months in jail and a $500 fine for individuals and a $2,000 fine for corporations. Buses violating the order may also be seized by the Police Department.

Under the terms of the executive order, buses can unload migrants only between 8:30 a.m. and 12 p.m., Monday through Friday. People must be dropped off at a specified location in the Times Square area or another location that city officials approve.

We are informed that low-skill migrants make us richer, but the article says that 10 percent of Denver’s budget is now devoted to housing migrants.

After the City of Chicago recently instituted similar regulations on bus companies, Texas responded by sending buses to the suburbs of Chicago instead, according to Mr. Johnson.

The buses have been “literally dropping families off in the middle of nowhere,” sowing “an incredible amount of chaos,” he said.

It is unclear if Mr. Abbott will follow a similar playbook by sending buses to places outside New York City. A spokesman for Mr. Abbott did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

If that happened, Mr. Goldfein said, “that would only highlight the recklessness and total disregard for the welfare of the people who are passengers on these buses.”

I continue to be fascinated by progressives who say that Texas is a place where nobody should live, e.g., because of restrictions on abortion care, and at the same time that migrants are harmed by being provided with free transportation to Massachusetts, New York, or Illinois. Isn’t it worth a few days of sleeping in a church basement in order to enjoy a lifetime of governance by Democrats rather than suffering tyrannical Republic rule?

The New York Times ends the article by referring to becoming wealthier and culturally richer as a “crisis”:

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