My office tower has a helipad on the roof, but I never seen it in action. Has anyone ever taken off or landed on an office tower? Or are they reserved for emergencies only?
Location: Portland OR Double Emerald (QF and AA), DL PM/MM, Starwood Plat
Posts: 9,803
I have taken off and landed on an office tower roof several times, but not in recent years. Most cities prohibit routine helicopter activity (perhaps due to the helicopter that fell off the roof of the PanAm building in NYC many years ago, leading to second thoughts about the risks involved). Some cities have few restrictions, for example in Hong Kong. In fact you can use the helipad on the roof of the Peninsula hotel if you are a guest there (cost is a bit high for landing fees, though).
Maybe this is a nitpicky point, but I seem to remember the PanAm building helicopter didn't fall off the roof; it rolled during landing, the rotor blades sheared on contact with the roof, the helicopter thereupon crashed sideways onto the roof, and pieces of rotor blade fell to the street killing a few people.
As far as I remember from reading the newspapers was that in the late 70's, a Pan Am helicopter's landing gear collapsed and the blades hit the helipad surface. This caused some of the blade to break off. At least one person on the street was cut in half.
My office tower has a helipad on the roof, but I never seen it in action. Has anyone ever taken off or landed on an office tower? Or are they reserved for emergencies only?
Continental used to offer helicopter service in Houston (1982-ish). I was picked up at the Galleria heliport and we stopped at a downtown office tower before heading to IAH for the connection.
Departing the tower was a rush: at one moment you're looking down at the heliport 5-10 feet below and then instantly you're at 700'.
Location: Seat 1A, Juice pretty much everywhere, Mucci des Coins Exotiques
Posts: 14,918
If you do business in San Paulo, Brazil there is a good chance you will at some point take off from a roof top in a helicopter. That's the only way the executives manage to get around in that traffic clogged city.
If you are on the near-north side of Chicago close to the Northwestern Medical Center you will often see medical helicopters landing on the roof.
Last year in central BKK, I used to wake up every weekday morning (for about 10 seconds before I dozed off again) to the sound of a helicopter arriving around 8 AM atop the nearby Bank of Ayodhya HQ. And departing again around 6 PM. One way to beat the traffic jams, I suppose...
In 77 or 78 it no longer became possible to land on buildings in NY due to the Pan Am building tragedy. Incidentally the reason for the crash was metal fatigue.
Programs: AA Plat; Hilton Gold; Priority Club Gold; Marriott Silver
Posts: 2,160
I worked for Prudential in Newark from 1985-1995. Though we were on the 4th floor of the Gateway building (the middle of the building), we kept smelling exhaust fumes. We complained to the people in charge of the facilities, but nothing changed. Finally we found out there was a heliport on the roof and they'd sit there idling- and there was an air intake port nearby.
They must have enacted rules about idling or changed the position of the helicopters, because the smell finally disappeared.
When billionaire/Dolphins owner H. Wayne Huizenga built a new HQ for his holding company on Las Olas Ave. in downtown, Ft. Lauderdale, he included a helipad on the roof - and he uses it quite often. I live about 9 blocks away and often hear (and sonetimes see his private 'copter.
__________________ * * * I Survived the Great FlyerTalk Outage of November 2009!!!!! * * *
