NEW YORK (AP) — A family from Spain was about to celebrate the ninth birthday of one of their children when their sightseeing helicopter broke apart in midair and crashed into the Hudson River between New York City and New Jersey, killing all six people aboard, officials said Friday.
Authorities including the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating Thursday’s crash. There has been no word of a cause. NTSB investigators were examining the remnants of the helicopter Friday and planned to brief reporters.
The victims included Siemens executive Agustin Escobar, his wife, Mercè Camprubí Montal, who was a global manager at an energy technology company, and their three children, in addition to the pilot.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said the children were 4, 8 and 10 years old, and the 8-year-old’s birthday was Friday.
“It’s just a real unfortunate situation. And our heart goes out to the family members,” Adams told Fox 5 New York.
Escobar was in the New York area on business and his family flew over to meet him for a few days, said Steven Fulop, mayor of Jersey City, New Jersey, in a post on X. He said a relative would arrive Friday and that officials were working with the medical examiner to release the bodies for their return to Spain.
Pieces of the aircraft could still be seen floating in the river Friday morning as divers resumed the search for evidence. The bulk of the cabin was retrieved by crane Thursday night.
Officials call for air traffic restrictions
With New York City’s history of fatal helicopter accidents that have killed 38 people since 1977, some officials are calling for flight restrictions around the city.
In an interview with The Associated Press, state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, a Democrat who represents a district on the west side of Manhattan along the Hudson River, said the crash was a “reminder of our worst fears of tourist helicopters” and called for restrictions on flights over the city.
“Having non-essential flights over densely populated areas is a recipe for disaster,” he said.
Robert Carroll, a Democratic member of the state Assembly, called for a stop to all sightseeing and commuter-related helicopter flights until the cause of Thursday’s crash is determined.
Adams, however, said he does not want to restrict flights yet, telling the TV station: “I think we should let the investigation go its course.”
Accidents and noise caused by helicopters have repeatedly led community activists and officials to propose banning or restricting traffic at Manhattan heliports.
A collision between a plane and a tourist helicopter over the Hudson in 2009 killed nine people, and five died in 2018 when a charter helicopter offering “open door” flights went down into the East River.
Witnesses describe the helicopter’s plunge into the Hudson
The doomed flight departed a downtown heliport around 3 p.m. Thursday and lasted less than 18 minutes. Radar data shows it flew north along the Manhattan skyline then south toward the Statue of Liberty.
Video of the crash show parts of the aircraft tumbling through the air near the Jersey City shoreline. The helicopter hit the river near the end of a long maintenance pier for a ventilation shaft serving the Holland Tunnel.
Witnesses described hearing loud bangs and looking up to see the helicopter’s main rotor detach from the aircraft and spin away, while the cabin and the chopper’s severed tail boom plummeted into the river.
Rescue boats circled the submerged aircraft within minutes of impact. The pilot and passengers were removed from the water but could not be saved, officials said.
Tour company’s owner unsure what went wrong
The flight was operated by New York Helicopter, one of a handful of companies that offer tourists sightseeing flights over the city from helipads in Manhattan and the suburbs. No one answered the phones at the company’s offices in New York and New Jersey on Thursday or Friday.
A person who answered the phone at the home of the company’s owner, Michael Roth, said he declined to comment. Roth told the New York Post he was devastated and had “no clue” what happened.
“The only thing I know by watching a video of the helicopter falling down, that the main rotor blades weren’t on the helicopter,” the Post quoted him as saying. He added that he had not seen anything like this during his 30 years in the helicopter business, but noted: “These are machines, and they break.”
The Federal Aviation Administration identified the helicopter as a Bell 206, a model widely used in commercial and government aviation, including by sightseeing companies, TV news stations and police. It was initially developed for the U.S. Army and thousands have been manufactured over the years.
FAA data shows the helicopter that crashed Thursday was built in 2004. It was a Bell 206 LongRanger IV, a slightly longer version of the original Bell 206 that can seat up to seven people — five passengers and two crew members.
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Collins reported from Hartford, Connecticut. Associated Press writers Philip Marcelo in New York; Anthony Izaguirre in Albany, New York; and Joseph Wilson in Barcelona, Spain contributed.
