The afternoon trip of the family of Spanish tourists above the foggy coast of Manhattan turned into a tragedy, when the helicopter was crashed into the river near the New Jersey, where the whole family and pilot was killed.
The passers-by who saw the helicopter fell from the air, and hitting the water turns upside down, while the parts of the spacecraft fell into the river.
The director of Siemens was killed
The Mayor of New York Eric Adams said that the family was from Spain. Agustín Escobar, his wife Merce Camprubí Montal and their children aged 4, 5 and 11, were identified as victims of the accident, along with a 36-year-old pilot, confirmed police sources for ABC News. Agustín Escobar was the entire (Executive Director) of the Spanish Division of Siemens.
As the Commissioner of the New York Police Jessica Tisch, the emergency service received a call at 15:17 – a decline in helicopters in the Hudson River near Pier and the park in Hoboken, along the coast of New Jersey. Upon arrival, the police pulled four people from the water, and the firefighters were two more.
Four people were declared dead at the scene, and two were transported to the hospital, Tisch said. The Mayor Jersey City Steven Fulop said two children were transported to the hospital, but doctors failed to save them and they were declared dead.
Technical data on helicopter and flight
According to data FlightRadar24, it is a helicopter Bell 206L-4 Longranger IV, built in 2004, with 2016 airworthiness certificate. That is valid until 2029, the FAA data show. The pilot information is not available, Adams said.
The helicopter took off his heliport in Lower Manhattan at 14:59, headed south, and turned north along the coast of Manhattan and the Hudson River. At 15:08 he came to the George Washington Bridge, then turned and flying along the coast of New Jersey, where he soon lost control, Tisch said.
At the time he strikes the water, the helicopter, according to everything, turned upside down, and the cabin was visible from the water. There are reports that the helicopter stopped in the air, and the parts began to separate – which coincides with calls to 911, Tisch said.
The Federal Air Force Governance (FAA) and the National Administration for Traffic Safety (NTSB) has launched a joint investigation. NTSB leads the main part of the investigation.
The helicopter was in a special air zone above New York, where there is no active flight control, said Minister Sean Duffy. A few minutes before entering that zone, the control was performed by the flight control of Laguardia Airport.
During the investigation, all the documentation on the condition of the helicopter will be analyzed.
The current president of the US Donald Trump expressed a sympathy through Truth Social, by ordering: “God bless the family and the victims of victims.”
“The only thing I can tell you is that we were shredded,” Michael Roth, the company’s director of the New York Helicopter Charter, who owns a helicopter.
“My father, grandfather, and my wife cries without cessation from the afternoon,” he added.
When asked about the technical state of the helicopter, he said that the director of the maintenance was in charge, who refused to comment.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez The accident called “unimaginable tragedy” in publishing on the X platform.
“All my thoughts are with the family and friends of the victims at the moment,” he wrote.
(Type / Source: Index.hr/ PHOTO: Facebook)
