A New York tourist helicopter broke in the middle of theft Thursday and crashed backwards in the Hudson, killing the pilot and a family of five Spanish tourists in the last air disaster in the United States, the authorities said.
Mayor Eric Adams explained that the flight had started a downtown heliport around 3 p.m. and that the victims, including three children, had been drafted and out of the water. The flight to the north, along the skyscrapers of Manhattan, then towards the south, towards the statue of Liberty, lasted less than 18 minutes.
A video of the accident shows parts of the aircraft crash into the water near the Jersey City coast in New Jersey. A witness on the spot, Bruce Wall, said he had seen him “disintegrate” in full flight, the tail and the propeller standing out. The propeller was still running without the helicopter at the time of the fall.
Dani Horbiak was at her home in Jersey City when she heard what looked like “several shots in a row, almost, in the air”. She looked out the window and saw the helicopter “crash into several pieces in the river”.
The helicopter spun uncontrollablely, “giving off thick smoke” before crashing into the water, said Lesly Camacho, hostess of a restaurant by the river in Hoboken, New Jersey.
Livestock boats surrounded the submerged device a few minutes after the impact, near the end of a long maintenance quay of a ventilation tower serving the Holland tunnel. The recovery teams hoisted the damaged helicopter out of the water shortly after 8 p.m. using a floating crane.
The flight was operated by New York Helicopters, the authorities said. No one answered the phone in the company’s offices in New York and New Jersey.
A person who answered the phone to the home of the owner of the company, Michael Roth, refused to comment.
Roth explained to the New York Post that he was devastated and that he had “no idea” of the reasons for the accident.
“The only thing I know watching a video of the helicopter’s fall is that the blades of the main rotor were not on the aircraft,” he said, quoted by the Washington Post. He added that he had never seen such an incident occurring in 30 years of experience in the helicopter sector, but said: “They are machines, and they break.”
E -mails requesting comments were sent to lawyers who represented Mr. Roth in the past.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has identified the helicopter as being a Bell 206, a model widely used in commercial and government aviation, in particular by tourist agencies, televised information chains and the police. It was initially developed for the American army before being adapted to other uses. Thousands of copies have been made over the years.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) announced an investigation.
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