A helicopter broke apart in mid-air Thursday and crashed upside-down into the Hudson River between Manhattan and the New Jersey waterfront, killing a family of Spanish tourists, including three children, in the latest high-profile aviation disaster in the U.S., officials said.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said all of the deceased have been recovered and removed from the water.
The New York City Fire Department said it received a report of a helicopter in the water at 3:17 p.m. ET.Â
Videos posted on social media showed the aircraft mostly submerged, upside down in the water.
Witness Bruce Wall said he saw the helicopter “falling apart” in mid-air, with the tail and propeller coming off. The propeller was still spinning without the aircraft as it fell, he said.
Lesly Camacho, a hostess at a restaurant along the river in Hoboken, N.J., said she saw the helicopter spinning uncontrollably before it slammed into the water.
“There was a bunch of smoke coming out. It was spinning pretty fast, and it landed in the water really hard,” she said in a phone interview.
Video posted to social media showed parts of the chopper splashing into the water, and the overturned aircraft submerged, with rescue boats circling it.
National Transportation Safety Board to investigate
The skies were overcast at the time, but visibility over the river was not substantially impaired. Rescue crews had to deal with water temperatures around 7 C.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) 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 departments.
It was initially developed for the U.S. army before being adapted for other uses. Thousands have been manufactured over the years.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said it would investigate.
The rescue craft were near a site close to the Manhattan waterfront, near the end of a long maintenance pier for one of the ventilation towers for the Holland Tunnel.
The skies over Manhattan are routinely filled with both planes and helicopters, both private recreational aircraft and commercial and tourist flights. Manhattan has several helipads that whisk business executives and others to destinations throughout the metropolitan area.
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.
A medical transport plane killed seven people when it plummeted into a Philadelphia neighborhood in January. That happened two days after an American Airlines jet and an army helicopter collided in mid-air in Washington, killing 67 — the deadliest U.S. air disaster in a generation.
The recent crashes and other close calls have left some people worried about the safety of flying.
