police officer James P. Rowley

aviation unit

july 22, 1983

Instructor-pilot Police Officer James P. Rowley, along with his observer, Police Officer Charles J. Trojahn, were both killed on a hot and hazy summer morning on July 22, 1983, when their police helicopter was involved in a mid-air collision with a sea plane, in the sky above Buttermilk Channel off Governor’s Island.

     The sea-plane collided with the tail rotor of the helicopter, sending it crashing through the roof of an empty warehouse on the Brooklyn waterfront, into which Officer Rowley had courageously steered, to avoid a row of private homes. Two of the four passengers on the plane also perished.