General News
24 July, 2026
Stop the noise
A MANOORA resident fed up with the noise and frequency of the Cairns police helicopter has launched a petition to have the operations of the emergency aircraft reviewed.
Sandor Hadas of Grantala St has lodged the petition with Queensland Parliament drawing attention to the House that “the proactive aerial patrolling tactics used by the POLAIR helicopter unit over residential suburbs in Cairns is disturbing residents”.
“While residents support public safety, the current strategy of prolonged, low-altitude hovering and circling for hours constitutes a form of collective disruption,” the petition says.
“This continuous exposure to high-decibel aviation noise is causing documented sleep deprivation, elevated stress and the degradation of the physical and mental health of law-abiding families.
“Furthermore, these repetitive, low-altitude loitering patterns generate significant localised air and noise pollution, which directly impacts the liveability of urban neighbourhoods and compromises residents’ rights to quiet enjoyment and privacy within their own homes. Your petitioners, therefore, request the House to direct the Minister for Police to conduct an immediate operational review into POLAIR operations.
“This review should establish stricter flight path regulations, enforce higher minimum cruising altitudes over residential zones during non-emergency patrols, implement mandatory strict time limits on non-pursuit loitering and ensure the Queensland Police Service implements transparent accountability measures to balance community safety with the fundamental health and well-being of residents.”
The software engineer said he had lived comfortably in his Manoora unit since 2021 but the POLAIR’s operations started to annoy him in May this year.
He started calling the police to complain and followed that up with 250 emails, including to Police Minister Dan Purdie and Premier David Crisafulli.
He said he had only received replies from the Brisbane-based officer-in-charge of POLAIR.
In one email, the response was: “Your current and previous correspondence has been reviewed”.
“POLAIR cannot provide any further information to you in relation to POLAIR operations,” the officer said.
“As such, we will not be responding to further correspondence on the matters raised and your articulation of when aircraft are operating in the Cairns areas.”
Mr Hadas said the police had been using two big helicopters – a Bell 429 and an Airbus H135, with the Bell now the official POLAIR aircraft.
“It has 11m diameter rotor blades with a disc area of 95sqm,” Mr Hadas said.
“It’s a huge helicopter and it is called the Rolls Royce of helicopters, so, it must have been very nice to ride in, but it’s an extremely noisy one,” he said.
“I think that they should be removing that particular chopper.
“The problem is particularly that they use these huge helicopters at very low altitude and it is also a big problem that when you look out and see those helicopters, then you see them in daytime at a decent distance.
“However, on a nighttime, they fly much lower than what you can see in the daytime.”
The 51-year-old said he had been in hospital with stress over the helicopter. “I was checked because the doctor said that I might have something in my mind and I might be defective, but apparently, after a brain CT, which I did not really want, they said that mentally I’m all right,” he said.
Mr Hadas said he had been banned from various crime forums because of his comments regarding the helicopter but he had also set up two Facebook pages: www.cnslocal.s.gy/MXFJz0 and www.cnslocal.s.gy/NKjbko
Mr Hadas has printed 4000 cards with details of the petition, with 2000 distributed throughout the main suburbs the helicopter flew over.
He said he would have been pleased if he received 20 signatures but so far the petition totals 159.
Mr Hadas said the Premier and Police Minister, as well as the POLAIR officer-in-charge, lived in Brisbane and didn’t have to put up with the noise and frequency.
“The thing is, it’s not in their backyards … they don’t have to put up with it. They don’t care, it’s not where they live. The chopper, it’s here,” he said.
Polair Cairns has been allocated $67.9 million over the next nine years, or $7.5m a year, to operate the helicopter.
Mr Purdie’s office was asked to comment on the petition.
The petition is at www.cnslocal.s.gy/oBDPgC
