For a brief moment in the 1960s, and again in 1977, passengers in Midtown Manhattan could walk into an office building, ride an elevator to the rooftop, and board a helicopter bound for the airport. It’s an idea shaped by the optimism of the Jet Age, when speed, altitude and technology were seen not just as conveniences but as the future of urban living. That building was the Pan American Tower, now known as the MetLife Tower, and its rooftop helipad was designed to bring that vision to life.
Skyscrapers built for different arrivals
When the Pan Am Building opened at 200 Park Avenue in 1963, it was thought to be more than just an office building. Backed by Pan Am World Airways and championed by President Juan Tripp, the structure was designed to be almost like an extension of the airline itself, a “city within a city” that could move people as efficiently as airplanes across continents. The building’s infrastructure reflects this ambition. It has dozens of high-speed elevators, including a double-decker system, and an upper lobby design that can handle thousands of workers and visitors every day. The top floors, on floors 57 and 58, feature a “heli club” where passengers can check in, wait and then proceed directly to the rooftop helipad.
Popular Science, September 1962. Image via Wikimedia Commons
The idea is simple: bypass Manhattan traffic entirely. The airport won’t actually go through the city to get to the airport, but rather to the city center.
Helipad construction begins and efforts to maintain it continue
Helicopter trials began in 1965, using Boeing Vertol 107 aircraft operated by New York Airlines. From the rooftop, passengers could fly directly to John F. Kennedy Airport and, at one point, Teterboro Airport. For a short time, the concept worked. During the 1966 transit strike, which shut down much of New York’s public transportation, the rooftop operations center reportedly served about 700 passengers a day. In moments like these, it offers a glimpse into what its proponents envisioned: a multi-layered city that could avoid congestion entirely on the ground.
New York Airways’ Boeing Vertol 107 helicopters continue to face noise complaints in Midtown, leading to the closure of Pan Am Heliport / Photo: Wikimedia Commons
But the problem is immediate and ongoing. The helicopters are loud and the noise they create continues to draw complaints from tenants and neighboring buildings. Demand was also lower than expected once the novelty wore off and normal shipping resumed. By 1968, three years after it began, the service was shut down.
Second attempt, fatal flaw
Nearly ten years later, in early 1977, the helipad reopened. This time, New York Airlines was operating a Sikorsky S-61 helicopter, the civilian version of the military Sea King helicopter. The relaunch aims to address early flaws and make the service financially viable. At the heart of the effort is an operational change: a procedure called “hot loading.” Rather than shutting down the aircraft between flights, the helicopter keeps its engines running and rotor blades spinning as passengers disembark and new passengers board. This approach shortens turnaround times and allows for more flights per day, but also significantly increases risk.
In 1977, the Sikorsky S-61L returned to service, a helicopter that was quieter and more efficient than the earlier Vertol helicopters. Image source: Wikimedia Commons
On May 16, 1977, that risk turned catastrophic. At about 5:35 p.m., a Sikorsky S-61 helicopter landed on the roof, its rotors still spinning, and passengers left while others waited nearby. The landing gear suffered a structural failure, which the National Transportation Safety Board later traced to metal fatigue in a critical component. The helicopter flipped onto its side when the landing gear collapsed. The spinning rotor blades hit the deck and shattered violently. Four people waiting on the roof to board a flight were killed by the impact and debris. Several others were injured.
Debris falls into the city
The damage was not limited to the roof. Fragments of the rotor blades were thrown outward with tremendous force. A large portion of it reportedly struck the building itself, hitting an upstairs window and then cracking open. Some of the debris extended into the street, killing a pedestrian on Madison Avenue who was waiting for a bus from the Bronx.
Aerial photo of the wreckage of Flight 972 on top of the Pan Am Building on May 16, 1977. (Neal Boenzi/The New York Times)
Other debris was found blocks away, underscoring the scale and unpredictability of the failure. This scene unfolds simultaneously on two levels of the city, rooftops and streets, and it exposes the risks of active aerial operations over dense urban spaces.
Why it failed and what happened next
Investigators determined the cause of the crash was not pilot error but structural failure. The NTSB found that a component in the landing gear made of 7075-T73 aluminum had developed cracks over time due to corrosion and repeated stress. The defect propagates unnoticed until failure under load. The severity of the accident was compounded by the fact that the helicopter was operating under “hot load” conditions, meaning the rotors were still spinning at full speed when the aircraft crashed.Our immediate response resulted in the rooftop helipad permanently closing that day and never reopening to commercial service. The accident also marked the end of an era. Large numbers of rooftop helicopter commutes in New York have virtually ceased, with regulators and city officials moving operations away from built-up areas to waterfront heliports where risks to people on the ground can be reduced.
A vision that cannot survive reality
The Pan Am Tower helipad embodies a specific moment in urban and technological thinking, one that was shaped by the belief that cities could be layered vertically, integrating air travel into everyday activities.In practice, this idea proved unsustainable. Noise, cost, safety and the reality of operating aircraft in dense urban environments all work against it.It’s quiet today on the rooftop of the MetLife Tower. The building itself functions much like any other major commercial tower in New York, a high-end office address housing large companies, with a retail plaza, cafes and day-to-day amenities on its lower levels. Peregrine falcons are also known to nest in its upper reaches, a quieter, unintentional use of a space once built for helicopters. Although its most ambitious features are no longer in use, it remains one of the city’s most recognizable landmarks.
MetLife Building. Photo by Dimitry Anikin on Unsplash
The firm that gave the building its name followed a similarly dramatic arc. Once an iconic airline of the jet age and a symbol of America’s global influence, Pan Am World Airways fell into a long decline in the ensuing decades. Unable to overcome financial difficulties and industry changes, the company eventually ceased operations in 1991.Since then, there have been periodic efforts to revive the Pan Am name in limited forms, capitalizing on its heritage and cultural influence. No one has restored it to its former stature, but the brand continues to resurface, with occasional talk of a wider comeback, and recent developments have even hinted at a possible return to the skies, as its current owner has reportedly begun the FAA certification process.
