Riverhead revives helicopter noise task force as Wading River complaints rise
Wading River residents said low-flying helicopters have made summer weekends unbearable as Riverhead reopens its noise task force before a July 29 FAA deadline.
Riverhead Town is bringing back its helicopter noise task force after low-flying flights again made summer weekends unbearable for Wading River residents. The group is set to meet July 16 at 4 p.m. in the Town Hall meeting room, and the session will be open to the public just as the federal North Shore helicopter route nears a July 29 expiration date.
Council Member Ken Rothwell will reconnect with longtime helicopter-noise advocate John Cullen and help reconvene the task force after hearing complaints at a Town Board meeting.
Wading River resident Patricia Berry said helicopters have been cutting inland near the Shoreham power plant before crossing town toward Gabreski Airport, East Hampton Airport or the Southampton Heliport. Berry said the Gabreski Airport noise committee recorded 567 complaints from January through April 2026, including 83 from Wading River. Berry said she tracked helicopters over her home on July 5 and filed reports with the FAA, arguing that pilots were ignoring the mandatory North Shore route.
The Federal Aviation Administration requires civil helicopters flying under visual flight rules along Long Island’s northern shoreline to use the North Shore Helicopter Route between the VPYLD waypoint and Orient Point. An FAA notice effective Aug. 6, 2012, requires pilots to use that route and altitude, and the agency extended the route’s expiration to July 29, 2026 in a July 2022 interim final rule. The July 2022 interim final rule cited East Hampton Airport’s charting and unresolved questions about the airport’s future and possible alternative destinations as reasons the FAA kept the rule in place.
FAA helicopter route charts are updated every 56 days. Frustrated North Fork residents filled Town Hall for a helicopter-noise discussion in 2019, and East End officials pushed for a public hearing on the route in 2018.
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