US FAA’s new rules on airspace over Hudson River come into force

The federal government of the United States has introduced new safeguards for the airspace over the Hudson River in New York in response to the fatal mid-air collision between a small aircraft and a helicopter in August 2009.

The crowded airspace over the Hudson River has been divided into tow: A low-altitude zone for local traffic, and a higher-altitude zone for longer-distance flights.

The changes in rules apply to that part of the Hudson River from the mid-way point of the Tappan Zee Bridge and the George Washington Bridge on the south to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, which links Staten Island and Brooklyn.

The new rules incorporate the provisions of a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) in October 2006, which restricted fixed-wing aircraft in the exclusion zone over the East River to seaplanes landing or taking off on the river or to those planes specifically approved by the Federal Aviation Administration’s air-traffic control.

According to the new altitude rules announced by the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), local flights – like small planes and helicopters used for sightseeing, news-gathering and law-enforcement – will not be allowed to fly higher than 1,000 feet over the Hudson River.

Small planes that pass through the Hudson River-are area must fly at an altitude of between 1,000 feet and 1,300 feet, Randy Babbit, Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, said.

All aircraft flying over the Hudson River at or below an altitude of 1,300 feet will be restricted to s speed of 140 knots, or around about 160 miles per hour, or less.

However, the rules stay unchanged for flights above 1,300 feet since these flights are required to be in contact with the air-traffic controllers.

Local flights that fly below 1,000 feet and which are not in contact with the air-traffic controllers are required, under the new rules, to announce the type of their aircraft, direction, altitude at charted mandatory reporting points on specific radio frequencies, position, as well as to turn on aircraft-position devices anti-collision devices if the planes are equipped with them.

According to FAA Administrator Randy Babbit, the things that the Federal Aviation Administration is asking the pilots to do now are what they had been asked to do in the past.

The Federal Aviation Administration framed the new rules regarding aircraft altitude over the Hudson River after the accident that took place in August 2009, in which 5 Italian tourists, who were on a sightseeing tour of New York City in a helicopter, and their pilot, as well as 3 people on a single-engine Piper plane en route to Ocean City, New Jersey, died when the two craft collided in mid-air.

The air-traffic controller and supervisor who were on duty at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, where the flight originated, are now on “administrative leave.” The

FAA has proposed that they be dismissed from service.

The Federal Aviation Administration is an agency of the United States Department of Transportation (DOT) having authority to regulate and oversee all aspects of civil aviation in the United States.

There was also a miraculous escape for the US Airways flight which suffered a bird hit and had to land in the Hudson river, but that incident was not a part of the FAA’s reasons to announcement new rules for flying over Hudson.