HORROR: Helicopter Plunges From The Sky In Lower Manhattan, Killing All 6 Onboard
A New York City sightseeing helicopter broke apart in midair Thursday and crashed upside-down into the Hudson River, killing the pilot and a family of five Spanish tourists in the latest U.S. aviation disaster, officials said. The victims included Siemens executive Agustin Escobar, his wife, Mercè Camprubí Montal, a global manager at an energy technology company, and three children, in addition to the pilot, a person briefed on the investigation told The Associated Press. The person could not discuss details of the investigation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Photos posted on the helicopter company’s website showed the couple and their children smiling as they boarded just before the flight took off. The flight departed a downtown heliport around 3 p.m. and lasted less than 18 minutes. Radar data showed it flew north along the Manhattan skyline and then back south toward the Statue of Liberty. Video of the crash showed parts of the aircraft tumbling through the air into the water near the shoreline of Jersey City, New Jersey. Witnesses describe the helicopter’s plunge into the Hudson A witness there, Bruce Wall, said he saw it “falling apart” in midair, with the tail and main rotor coming off. The main rotor was still spinning without the helicopter as it fell. Dani Horbiak was at her Jersey City home when she heard what sounded like “several gunshots in a row, almost, in the air.” She looked out her window and saw the chopper “splash in several pieces into the river.” The helicopter was spinning uncontrollably with “a bunch of smoke coming out” before it slammed into the water, said Lesly Camacho, a hostess at a restaurant along the river in Hoboken, New Jersey. On air traffic control radio, an NYPD helicopter pilot can be heard saying, “Be advised, you do have an aircraft down. Holland Tunnel. Please keep your eyes open for anybody in the water.” About five minutes after that, someone asks, “Hey Finest,” a reference to the NYPD’s call sign, “what’s going on over there by the Holland Tunnel?” “The ship went down,” someone else responds. Rescue boats circled the submerged aircraft within minutes of impact near the end of a long maintenance pier for a ventilation tower serving the Holland Tunnel. Recovery crews hoisted the mangled helicopter out of the water just after 8 p.m. using a floating crane. The bodies were also recovered from the river, Mayor Eric Adams said. The flight was operated by New York Helicopters, officials said. No one answered the phones at the company’s offices in New York and New Jersey. 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” why the crash 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 such a thing happen during his 30 years in the helicopter business, but noted: “These are machines, and they break.” Emails seeking comment were sent to attorneys who have represented Roth in the past. The Federal Aviation Administration identified the helicopter as a Bell 206, a model […]
