Hate helicopter noise? Now you can file a complaint with the FAA

By Erika Aguilar

Published Apr 1, 2015 9:15 PM

Listen • 0:46

LOS ANGELES, CA - MAY 09: A Los Angeles County firefighting helicopter flies through a smoky sky that covers the downtown skyline as firefighters work to build a line around a wildfire in Griffith Park, the nation's largest urban park, on May 9, 2007 in Los Angeles, California. The Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles Zoo, Travel Town, and various other park features were threatened but did not burn in the wildfire that broke out yesterday afternoon and forced nearby residents to evacuate their homes later that night. More than 800 acres of brush have been consumed by the fire so far. Five fires have broken out in the park, which is mostly native chaparral habitat open space, since December including one near the landmark Hollywood sign. Los Angeles is experiencing the driest rain season since records began in 1887. Two years ago, the city had its second-wettest winter. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

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Los Angeles area residents can now report noisy helicopters flying over their homes and businesses. On Tuesday, a countywide phone and online Automated Complaint System (ACS) went live.

“It gives the community, the FAA and the helicopter pilots an opportunity to see what the hotspots are, where most people are disturbed by helicopter noise,” said Wayne Williams, a member of the Los Angeles Area Helicopter Noise Coalition, one of the groups who pushed for the creation of the hotline.

ACS creates a means for tracking chopper noise pollution. It also creates a centralized portal for this data – one of the recommendations made in a 2013 FAA report on mitigating helicopter noise in Los Angeles. Before this, individual airports or helicopter companies took noise complaints, but not all – that made it difficult to quantify the problem.

There are also no firm rules for how low or high a helicopter must fly. The Helicopter Noise Coalition wants the FAA to require pilots, wherever safely possible, to fly at 2,000 feet above ground level for non-emergency flights.

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Chuck Street, executive director of the Los Angeles Area Helicopter Operators Association, said many helicopter pilots servicing the tourist industry, particularly those flying around the Hollywood sign, fly at approximately 900 feet above ground level.

Street said forcing pilots to fly at higher altitudes can be dangerous because of plane traffic.

“What we’re afraid of is some type of official rule-making that would be a blunt instrument and severely restrict our activity,” he said.

Street said he is looking forward to reviewing data collected from the complaint system to see if there is in fact a significant number of people making complaints.

“The FAA expects the information collected will help identify patterns and trends in helicopter operations, improve understanding of community reaction to helicopter noise, and inform future efforts to develop and implement noise abatement measures,” said FAA spokesperson Ian McGregor in an email.

How it works

The FAA allocated $250,000 to contract with flight-tracking company Bruel & Kjaer to run the complaint system and collect data from it for one year.

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Anyone can call 424-348-HELI to make a helicopter noise complaint or complete an online form at heli-noise-la.com.

Residents can also investigate noisy choppers by tracking them on the website’s map. It allows users to go back in time and see which aircraft flew over their homes – as well as find out more information about when the craft flew by; what its flight path was; and how low it was in the sky.