Nightly helicopters leave West Town residents asking why

nightly helicopters – For years, Chicago residents have heard helicopters buzzing overhead at hours that don’t match daytime traffic coverage or obvious police activity. In one West Town case, the pattern persists even after federal immigration enforcement operations ended—pushing

On some nights in Chicago’s West Town neighborhood, the sound comes first—then the questions.

Cara Novy has watched and listened to helicopters flying overhead in what seems like a nightly schedule for “the past couple of years. ” she told Curious City. She says she can’t tell where they’re going or what they’re doing. “Where are they going?. What are they doing?. What kind of helicopters are they?. … They look black. They could be gray. I mean, you can’t see any markings on them.”.

Novy is not alone. Over the years. Curious City has received about a dozen questions from listeners who are intrigued—or annoyed—by helicopters buzzing over their neighborhoods. sometimes at odd hours of the night. People grew newly alert last year when Chicagoans became more focused on aircraft activity during the federal government’s immigration enforcement crackdown. Even after Operation Midway Blitz ended last fall, the calls kept coming.

To explain why certain helicopters show up where they do and when they do, Novy’s case points back to a basic, but little-understood, piece of aviation reality: airspace.

A flight path that runs near the ground

Novy lives near the Kennedy Expressway, which Jim Triggs described as “one of the main corridors a lot of aircraft fly, because you’re right between O’Hare and Midway.” Triggs is chief pilot and director of operations for Midwest Helicopter Airways in suburban Willowbrook.

Triggs said many helicopters you see in Chicago operate within airspace where they don’t need to communicate with air traffic controllers. He compared FAA-monitored airspace around major airports to “an upside-down wedding cake,” with different tiers depending on location.

Inside a circle drawn around O’Hare Airport and extended skyward. the FAA controls helicopter traffic from the ground up to 10. 000 feet. There’s a similar setup around Midway. But moving farther out from the airports. Triggs said. the monitored space opens near the ground—meaning helicopters can fly without talking to controllers.

He gave an example: a helicopter taking off from O’Hare and heading east along Foster Avenue would cross over the Kennedy Expressway and enter a Class B airspace. Pilots don’t need to talk with air traffic controllers there as long as they don’t fly any higher than 1. 900 mean sea level. Since Chicago is about 600 feet above sea level, that altitude works out to roughly 1,300 feet above the ground. Continue east and. around where you cross Damen Avenue. pilots can ascend up to 3. 000 feet mean sea level—about 2. 400 feet above ground—without talking to controllers. Then. near Lake Michigan. the FAA’s map warns that along the shoreline there’s “very heavy” helicopter traffic using “visual flight rules” to navigate.

Even when pilots aren’t communicating with the towers at O’Hare and Midway. Triggs said they’re still coordinating—just not in the way many residents assume. “Even when pilots aren’t communicating with the towers at O’Hare and Midway. they are talking with each other via radio. ” he said. Aircraft also transmit and receive ADS-B data, the same type of information used in flight-tracking apps. “So, our aircraft will actually give us a map showing where other aircraft are,” Triggs said. His company lifts heavy objects like air conditioning units and signs onto the tops of buildings.

ADS-B Exchange, and the helicopters it can’t see

For people like Novy, flight-tracking apps can at least answer a basic question: what exactly is overhead.

There are websites and apps that show real-time maps of aircraft in flight, including Flightradar24, FlightAware, AirNav Radar and ADS-B Exchange. Users can click on an aircraft symbol to see its information and a line showing where it has been flying.

But some apps—Flightradar24, in particular—often block identities of police and government helicopters. That’s why Soren Spicknall, a civic activist living on the Far South Side, uses ADS-B Exchange. He said it’s more comprehensive, showing data for helicopters that are masked on other apps.

“ADS-B Exchange relies really heavily on community-based receivers of the kind of data that aircraft are sending back and forth through the atmosphere, about their position, their altitude, their speed,” Spicknall said.

Spicknall’s comment matched what Curious City found when it tried ADS-B Exchange directly. Over a few hours, a week’s worth of helicopter flights over Chicago were checked. In that window. 53 different helicopters were counted flying over the Chicago area at various times during the last week of April. The busiest was a news helicopter shared by CBS and Fox. which spent more time in the air than anyone else. flying for a total of 46 hours. according to the website. No. 2 was a medical helicopter with 30 hours of flight time going to and from hospitals. The next busiest helicopters were operated by WGN-TV, the Chicago Fire Department and the Chicago police.

Even ADS-B Exchange, though, can’t capture everything. Sometimes, helicopters vanish from the map.

Steve Held. who reported for the independent outlet Unraveled Press. said he watched a helicopter fly over his Northwest Side home and then tried to look it up. “I opened up ADS-B Exchange and I was surprised to see actually, there was nothing there. It didn’t show the helicopter over my house at all,” he said. Held said the helicopter’s operator “will turn off their transponder when they’re on operations. ” stopping the aircraft from broadcasting this information—effectively going “stealth on the app.”.

The FAA, when asked about the issue, said aircraft are usually required to transmit ADS-B data. The spokesperson said: “The only waivers … are for law enforcement, active national security and VIP movement,” and that the FAA issues “very limited exemptions,” given “at the time of operation.”

Where the pattern feels personal

Held believes the helicopter he saw over his home was operated by the Department of Homeland Security. which he said had a lot of aircraft above Chicago during last fall’s Operation Midway Blitz. One incident became especially notorious: agents rappelled down from a Black Hawk during a Sept. 30 raid on an apartment building in the South Shore neighborhood.

DHS later put out a video showing a scene filmed from the helicopter. The Illinois Accountability Commission condemned the use of a helicopter in its report. writing: “Agents may … have violated agency policy by using dangerous and highly militarized tactics. such as rappelling from a helicopter onto a rooftop in a residential neighborhood. for the purpose of producing social media content and other publicity. According to policing experts. the use of a military helicopter to rappel onto the roof of a residential building for the type of operation executed at South Shore was a significant departure from standard practice because it places residents. bystanders. and the agents in extreme danger from a helicopter mishap.”.

Responding to questions about the incident, a DHS spokesperson said, “This operation was performed in full compliance of the law.”

Held said the South Shore case stands out. but he described it as part of a wider federal use of helicopters that can make people feel watched. “While the South Shore raid became emblematic of the crackdown on immigration. ” he said. “Held said it was more typical for the feds to use helicopters to monitor protesters. ‘You would see helicopters providing overhead surveillance for what was going on in the crowd. people that they were keeping an eye on. ’ he said.”.

Spicknall described a similar pattern in his own observations. “If [U.S. Customs and Border Protection] recklessly crashes their vehicle into a corner and then a bunch of community members gather, then sometimes these helicopters are hovering above,” he said.

For immigration clients, the noise itself can carry weight. Andrew Thrasher, a local consultant for immigration law firms, said he has seen how the presence of helicopters unsettles people. “I’ve been in a room with them before and heard a helicopter fly overhead and seen those reactions. ” he said. “Just hearing that noise overhead is very concerning for anyone, because of so many unanswered questions. Who is this?. Who is flying overhead?”.

Helicopters also entered another kind of police operation: car chases. On Oct. 14. in the East Side neighborhood. a DHS helicopter flew overhead as Border Patrol agents raced down streets in pursuit of a suspected undocumented immigrant. The agency’s own videos captured a supervisor saying, “Hey agents, the bird has eyes. Stop following that vehicle.” The videos show a helicopter watching. so agents on the ground didn’t need to chase it. Held said they continued the chase and crashed into the vehicle.

Held argued the operation demonstrated how helicopter surveillance could reduce risk in theory. “In theory, having the helicopters — yeah, it makes it easier for them to track a vehicle without having to engage in a high-speed chase,” he said.

Curious City reported that DHS defended the actions of its agents when asked, but did not address whether agents should have relied on helicopter surveillance instead of risky driving.

When the helicopters aren’t part of a crackdown

In more recent months, Held said DHS helicopters haven’t been as busy over Chicago. And when they do appear on flight-tracking apps, he said that doesn’t necessarily mean another immigration operation is coming. “I think those often aren’t immigration enforcement-related,” he said.

In some cases. people might be seeing a Customs and Border Protection helicopter that’s part of a local task force following stolen cars after carjackings. The task force includes the Chicago police and the Cook County sheriff as well. and it has been in place since 2021—before Operation Midway Blitz.

A CBP spokesperson confirmed the agency still participates in Chicago’s carjacking task force. The Chicago police did not grant a request for an interview about the department’s use of helicopters.

What West Town may be hearing anyway

For Novy, there is another likely driver too: the city’s heliports.

Over the course of two nights, Novy wrote down the exact times she noticed 26 helicopter flights. Curious City then used that information to look up the flights on the ADS-B Exchange online map.

Most of the flights were taking off from Vertiport Chicago, a heliport opened in 2015 on the Near West Side. The helicopters flew northeast over Novy’s neighborhood, heading up to the area around Montrose Point, where they circled before returning.

Vertiport Chicago didn’t answer the inquiry.

Triggs said he has used Vertiport and described it as primarily serving tours. He added that it’s part of the Illinois Medical District, and “a lot of medical helicopters use it.”

Meigs Field once served a different role. Triggs said Vertiport can also be used as a staging point during emergencies. filling a void left by the 2003 closing of downtown’s Meigs Field airport. “Should something ever occur. that’s a primary location for military aircraft to come in and out. if need be. to bring humanitarian efforts into the city. ” Triggs said.

Triggs acknowledged the frustration. “Someone’s just trying to go to bed, might upset them,” he said. But he argued the flights may also matter in life-and-death ways. “The helicopter could be transporting an infant. A little inconvenience that someone might experience could have just saved a life.”

Chicago helicopters FAA airspace ADS-B Exchange Vertiport Chicago Operation Midway Blitz Department of Homeland Security U.S. Customs and Border Protection Border Patrol car chase South Shore raid West Town