A tourist helicopter crashed into New York City’s Hudson River on Thursday, killing all six persons on board, including a Spanish family with three children and the pilot, according to the State’s Mayor, Eric Adams
According to a corporate spokesperson , one of those killed was Agustin Escobar, CEO of Rail Infrastructure at Siemens Mobility, the rail transportation division of Germany-based technology corporation Siemens (SIEGn.DE).
Pictures of the crash showed what appeared to be a large object plunging into the river, followed by what appeared to be a helicopter blade.
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Afterwards, emergency and police boats were seen circling around a patch of river where the helicopter was submerged, with only what appeared to be the aircraft’s landing gear poking above the water’s surface.
The Bell 206 chopper, operated by New York Helicopter Tours, departed at about 3 p.m. ET (1900 GMT) from a downtown helicopter pad and flew north over the Hudson River, New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.
Divers helped remove the victims from the water. Four were pronounced dead at the scene, while two others were taken to area hospitals, where they died.
The airspace around Manhattan is crowded with helicopters offering tourists a bird’s-eye view of the sights, with at least two dozen operators listed on tour website Viator. Many of the operators also offer helicopter shuttle services to the area’s airports.
Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy said the tour helicopter was in a Special Flight Rules Area established in New York, which means no air traffic control services were being provided when it crashed.
The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate, with the NTSB leading the investigation.
Over the years, there have been multiple crashes, including a collision between a plane and a tourist helicopter over the Hudson River in 2009 that killed nine people and the 2018 crash of a charter helicopter offering “open door” flights that went down into the East River, killing five people.
