NY Helicopter Traffic Reporter Was 9/11's 'First Word'

He spends more than three hours in a helicopter nearly every weekday, flying in some of the world’s busiest airspace, and while his voice is familiar to millions of New York City-area commuters, WCBS 880 radio helicopter traffic reporter Tom Kaminski is also known for his brief role as an eyewitness to one of the darkest events in American history. Not even the passage of two decades has dimmed his recollections of that clear late summer morning. “The day was uneventful up until that point. We were out later than we normally would have been. We had to check on a collision that turned out to be really nothing. At 8:46 we started to make our way back [to the helicopter base at Linden Airport] and were making our turn south on the Hudson at the George Washington Bridge when we saw a flash and a fireball.”

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The date was Sept. 11, 2001, and from his lofty vantage point, Kaminski and his pilot Arthur Anderson had just witnessed the explosion of the first airliner as it struck Tower One of the World Trade Center. As the Bell 206L-3 Long Ranger headed downtown for a closer look, Kaminski tried in vain to reach his newsroom for information. “8:48 is scheduled to be my last report in the morning, so there was about a 90-second lag from the time that the first plane hit to the time that I made it on the radio. I went on the air essentially not having any information about what I was going to talk about and so all I remember saying is, 'Something has happened at the World Trade Center,'” Kaminski told BJT. “I was told afterward that my report was the first broadcast, the first word.”

As the helicopter arrived on the horrific scene, Kaminski realized that an aircraft must have struck the building and he had his pilot fly south to see if it had passed through and landed on the street below. “We were up just about at roof level, about 1,200 feet, and the smoke started to drift because there was a change in the current and we figured before we get caught up in the middle of this, let’s start to head north. We did not realize it but we were right at the spot where the second plane made the last left turn into Building Two.”

The helicopter was also carrying a traffic reporter for another New York radio station who occasionally operated a video camera for the local ABC television affiliate. As Kaminski continued his live reporting, the Long Ranger headed north, and the cameraman, who was videotaping the scene from the back of the helicopter, caught the second jetliner seconds before its fatal crash. The iconic still frame of that last second before impact was featured on the front page of newspapers around the world. “At that point, we had no idea what was going on. My recollection is the ATC [air traffic control] at LaGuardia was trying to clear everyone out of the airspace because there were reports that there was another aircraft coming in,” said Kaminski.

Low on fuel after being in the air for more than three hours, the pilot headed over to a small airbase nearby in New Jersey. “Our plan was to go there, get fuel, and take back off,” he said. “We got fuel, we started to lift off, and the ATC at Teterboro told Arthur we needed to land immediately, the airspace has been sterilized. We got about five feet off the ground and that was it.” The helicopter would remain grounded for the next week until permission was finally granted to shuttle it back to Linden. For many people, Kaminski’s above-the-scene reports that day live on in their memory as their first notice of the day’s tragic events, but he steadfastly downplays his involvement. “I’m for lack of a better word, cemented into the whole legacy of what happened that day, but my involvement was in the beginning. I was in a certain place at a certain time and that’s it.”

Traffic Shadower

Kaminski’s traffic reporting career began after he graduated from college and joined Shadow Traffic. He worked as a driver, traffic producer, and finally director of information services, before being hired by WCBS Radio in 1988. When a slot for the afternoon helicopter traffic reporter opened later that year, he auditioned and was awarded the job. In 1999, when Neal Busch, the station’s long-time morning rush-hour reporter retired, Kaminski accepted his shift as well. These days in addition to his radio duties, he also reports for local television station WPIX’s morning news program.

His workday starts when he arrives at Linden Airport—home to most of the New York City media’s helicopter fleet—around 4:45 a.m. Chopper 880 as it is known—a Bell 206 L-4 owned by and leased through Helicopters Inc.—lifts off at 5:30 a.m., weather permitting. “The pilot always makes the call,” said Kaminski. “If he says no, then it’s no, nobody is pushing anybody out the door.” On days when poor weather precludes flying, Kaminski broadcasts his traffic reports to the station from an audio feed in his office in the hangar. The radio traffic updates come every 10 minutes, with the PIX11 Morning News reports at the top and bottom of the hour, until the morning rush period ends around 9 a.m.

The area under his watch is an approximately 100-mile circle, centered on New York City. As reports of traffic delays come in, the helicopter could head north to Connecticut, east to Long Island, or even to southern New Jersey depending on the urgency of the situation.

Despite working nearly every day in a helicopter cockpit, Kaminski does not have a pilot license. Although he admits he’s been tempted in the past, he says he no longer has the time to consider it. And, after spending more than three decades as a helicopter reporter, he has realized that his duties are more than sufficient without having to worry about controlling the aircraft. “I wouldn’t even attempt it," he said. "I know what I have to do, and the pilot’s job is difficult enough and I can only speak for myself coming from the standpoint that I’m not a pilot, to begin with. It’s a very busy airspace and I think that’s part of the reason why you don’t have [pilot-reporters] here in New York.”  

Operating in that busy airspace involves adherence to many regulatory constraints and heightened awareness. “We don’t normally operate in the Hudson River exclusion,” Kaminski explained, adding his pilot is always in contact with air traffic control. “We’re operating in the Class B airspace, so we’re getting handoffs from one ATC to another.”

Another potential problem faced by news pilots in metropolitan areas is the scrum to position over a breaking story, such as the one in Phoenix in 2007 that resulted in a midair collision between two news helicopters tracking a police chase. According to Kaminski, despite the inherent urge among news organizations to break a story, the New York pilots look out for each other. “There’s a level of friendly competition but this is a very small club and we all talk to each other and if we’re going anywhere, these guys will always call out their positions. That’s a hard and fast rule that these guys have always adhered to.”

While he has always had an interest in photography, Kaminski, an avid fan of the New York Mets, developed a new hobby while flying that allowed him to combine both passions in late 2008. While updating the traffic when flying over Queens, he noticed lights at the Mets' former home Shea Stadium were ablaze in the early morning hours a few days after the baseball season ended. Knowing the team would soon be moving into Citi Field, the new facility being constructed just across the parking lot, Kaminski got permission from the nearby LaGuardia tower controller to head over. While hovering over the empty stadium, Kaminski snapped photos as cranes and other demolition vehicles drove onto the outfield grass. As the ballpark was dismantled over the next several months, he documented its demise with photographs posted on WCBS’s website. That proved so popular that the demolition of the original Yankee Stadium got equal treatment, along with Giants Stadium, as well as the construction of their replacements. As social media has mushroomed over the years, so too have Kaminski’s aerial photo contributions using his handle @tomkaminskiwcbs on both Instagram and Twitter. “It’s grown from a hobby that I’ve done to part of my job description,” he said.

At the start of the COVID pandemic, Kaminski did not fly until health protocols were established. When he resumed, though road traffic had declined, Kaminski found other targets through his lens, such as documenting the lines outside Covid test centers, or the medical tent city set up in Central Park. With commercial air traffic levels bottoming out in April 2020, Kaminski and his pilot received ATC permission to fly and videotape approaches into what were normally some of the busiest runways in the world, but then virtually idled, performing touch-and-goes at John F. Kennedy International, Newark Liberty International, and LaGuardia Airports.

When it comes to job satisfaction, Kaminski considers himself to be lucky to be involved in the helicopter industry. “The view out my office window is terrific and I’m always mindful of that. People come to New York and spend hundreds of dollars to get the same view that I get every day, and I get paid for it. It’s the greatest thing in the world and I’m very fortunate to say I love what I do.”