Pilot who flew Tommy Lee to concert, reckless flying

[Mellyrose]

Should the medical choppers be now restricted by landing on public roads?

That is a completely different situation. They do have clearance to land in public roads, and the area is surely made safe beforehand. You really can't compare a medical emergency to a rocker who thinks rules don't apply to him.

Also, your comments about how reckless you are make me glad that you aren't flying in NY airspace....and fear for when you might be in the future.

[hiss srq]

that is your opinion but hey there are 22+ clients who say othewise including some high profilers so no harm done. And I do not see that being reckless. No powerline no tree no big deal. Not like a cat is going to jump up only to be blown back down in my rotorwash anyway. As for dates I will be in town next week twice I will be in with the Lear 35 so with that logic I guess you you should be alerting the media I might do somthing like turn too steeply or an aggressive departure down the runway out of TEB. :twisted:

[Mellyrose]

Listen, kid....my intention wasn't to imply that you are not a respected pilot, but all I know about your morals and view on safety is that "everyone breaks rules sometimes." When it comes to a big piece of metal in the sky, I don't want any rules broken by my pilot...or any flying anywhere near me. You haven't exactly painted the safest picture of yourself for us in this thread.

[hiss srq]

Safety is the utmost importance I am just looking to enlighten people because the oh gosh factor over landing in a street and what people want done to the pilot is a bit offensive because we all have a little fun with flying and I am not looking to rip or be ripped apart. I am making points about this and how it is very common to happen and not such a big deal. No harm no foul end of topic from me.

[Mellyrose]

Honestly, I MIGHT be a bit more forgiving if he just did it once...but after a warning blatantly telling him what he did was illegal (which he should have known already) he flat out ignored and disrespected the law and did it AGAIN. You really think that's excusable? What makes him immune to rules? Also, I don't think that any "fun" is acceptable, considering the welfare of other people and their safety was not in his interest.

[hiss srq]

no the repeat part not excuseable but landing in public as a general fact is not a big issue now after being told not to repeat yes take action on that note actions are likely to be taken but landing in the street to me is just not an issue (in a helicopter) no hard feelings but I just hold a diffrent view on it than the rest of you. On that note I bid farewell as it is time for me to actually go fly.

[sluger020889]

Ryan...buddy...lets ponder this for a second. When ever the cops or the paramedics do it, the streets are cleared and everyone is expecting it. In this case the dude dropped outta the sky pretty much without warning. All it would've taken was one driver not paying attention and boom, big trouble. Now I've known you to have fun in the air, but always with safety in mind...

Tthis wasn't the brightest display of smarts in the world, especially doing it twice. And personally I can't stand when celebs think they can do whatever they want...

[PhilDernerJr]

i am making the point that it is a bit stupid to bring up safety in this case as it happens all of the time...

Why do you think this is even an acceptable excuse?

[hiss srq]

because if it was an issue many more helicopters would be crashing if it from things like this. If the area was a bad and dangerous place to land I am sure the pilot would not have done it, he saw it as a safe spot to put her down to pick up MR. Lee though maybe he should have just driven to the thing or went to the airport to catch a ride he did not, it happened and it is not a big issue. I am sure in NY that if that area was not so much more closely scrutinized airspace wise and the area was not soo cluttered with buildings, poles and wires you would see it more often. In NY if your transponder goes out they are all over it immediately, down here..... not so much. Out there.... maybe they do maybe they don't I have not shut my transponder off while flying out there recently but I will let you know how it goes. (sarcasm) Point be made I just have a diffrence in opinion in it that is all and I am sorry to any I may have smarted off to. I just hold diffrence in view on this specific issue and I always do keep safety in mind when plotting my fun.

[cancidas]

I am not with an airline yet I fly Lears, a Navajo and occasionally a Robbinson R44 helicopter. Soon I will probably be with ExpressJet in the near future though. I applied to JetBlue recently but was turned down as I have not completed my 4 year degree yet. I have been flying since I was 9 years old. In fact I was in newsday summer of 2000 after completing a flight school program and clinic when I was a teen.

congrats, all that means to me is that you're rated and looking for something credible to argue around.

that is your opinion but hey there are 22+ clients who say othewise including some high profilers so no harm done. And I do not see that being reckless. No powerline no tree no big deal. Not like a cat is going to jump up only to be blown back down in my rotorwash anyway. As for dates I will be in town next week twice I will be in with the Lear 35 so with that logic I guess you you should be alerting the media I might do somthing like turn too steeply or an aggressive departure down the runway out of TEB.

why do high-profile people not have to follow the same rules as the rest of us non-high profilers? if you get into a car accident with someone with a trillion dollars and completely total his car because you didn't see him, he says not to worry about it cuz he can buy another YOU STILL WRECKED THE CAR. still think no harm no foul?

do people break rules? ablsolutely. it's one thing to speed on an empty highway at 4 in the morning and another to do it at 3 in the afternoon. when other people are involved the rules are there not only to protect your life but the lives of all those around you. take a lesson from my forner NCO... "rules are there to keep you safe. if you break them, you die... just like that."

[USAF Pilot 07]

Just from reading that article, I don't think any of us here can honestly say whether the decision to land was safe or unsafe. If the landing was done on a public road, (let's say one leading up to Mr. Lee's house) but not near many houses, trees or powerlines, it may have very well been safe to land there; much safer than landing than say at a place like the East 34th Street Heliport.
A lot of these celebrities have huge houses with "isolated" public roads leading to them.
But, seeing as how this happened in the hills of Hollywood, not rural Florida or rural America, and that enough people alerted the police to the event, it would seem that the decision to land on the road wasn't the "most safe" decision.

Now to my take on this:
The issue really at hand here is legality of all of this and the stupidity of the pilot. While I'm sure that the majority of helo pilots COULD make that landing without incident, there are reasons why landing on public roads is ILLEGAL. In this situation the helicopter pilot put himself above the LAW, and above aviation REGULATIONS, when he decided to land on a public road. When people blatantly disregard the LAW and REGULATIONS established with good meaning to safeguard the public, they put themselves above everybody else, and in turn put everyone at risk.

The real "slap in the face" here is that, if it wasn't bad enough the pilot disregarded the law and aviation regulations the first time, after he was explicity told by police what he had done was wrong and illegal he still decided to come back and do the exact same thing for a second time. For that reason, whether this guy is just a stupid pilot, or someone with a huge ego who thinks he can do whatever he wants, he should NEVER fly again.

And taking safety shortcuts is not just another part of the job. Hiss SRQ, do you alert your boss and your clients to the safety shortcuts you take?
While I haven't had all that much flying experience or training, I can tell you that based on my initial flying with the Air Force, and really with my day-to-day operations at the Air Force Academy for the past three years(much of which revolves around training future aviators), that safety is paramount. While many rules may seem dumb and pointless, they are set usually because people in the past have either been hurt or killed doing whatever it is that rule prohibits. When safety shortcuts are taken, it only becomes a matter of time before someone is hurt or killed.
When I was in my initial flight screening program for the Air Force this summer, safety, and diligently following the rules, was always briefed as the #1 priority. While it may have been really easy, and probably harmless to my flight, to skip certain preflight items, or to take shortcuts in flight, hundreds of people in military and general aviation flying who took those shortcuts and skipped those steps in the past, died, were seriously hurt, or seriously hurt or killed others as a result. And I can guarantee that among those people who do continue to take shortcuts, some of them will have the same fate one day.

[Nonstop2AUH]

Celebs and rich people in America will try to get away with just about anything. This pilot probably made the calculated decision to go ahead and do it because he'd rather risk paying a fine than upset a wealthy customer like Tommy Lee. Unfortunately, he at best inconvenienced and at worst put at risk the lives of the general public and also broke the law. There's a reason why commercial choppers are no longer permitted to land in places like the top of the old Pan Am building. I am not a pilot, but know several who have been flying professionally alot longer than since 2000, in fact, most have been flying since the Pan Am building was called that, and all of them have told me there are times when you as the captain of the aircraft have to draw the line in the name of safety, despite what your pushy millionaire in the back might want.

[GrummanFan]

I've been trying to find Tommy Lee's house on Google Earth (no luck yet), but if its anything like the other places in the area, I wouldn't set a bird down in there. The houses are very close togeather, and in the areas where they're spread out there are alot of trees. Personally, I'd like to see where he landed first before I comment on the level of stupididy of this. I agree that once in a while, it's fun to break the rules. We only live once, and if you constantly follow what the "man" says you can be in for a dull life. But if you're going to do something illegal like that, use your head. Buzz someone's house? Maybe somewhere out west, but not in Levittown. You have to draw the line between doing something stupid safely and just doing something completely stupid. This was definately teetering on that line.

[Jonesbeach]

From this article, it looks like he lives in the 1800 block of Wattles Dr.

http://ktla.trb.com/news/ktla-tommy,0,5 ... tla-news-1

Here is the link to Maps.google.com:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Wattles+D ... hl=en&om=1

Although there is enough room between the houses in his neighborhood, the road itself looks pretty curvy. I'm not sure someone would have enough time to stop if they saw a helicopter in the road.

Steve

[Mateo]

Stuff like this is why the "careless and reckless" bit was written into the FAR. It doesn't matter if this happens "all the time," the simple fact is that it was fundamentally unsafe, not to mention illegal, and the pilot deserves nothing less than having his ticket pulled plus any civil/criminal charges that can be laid by local authorities.