Family was to celebrate child’s birthday when NYC helicopter crashed, says mayor

A family from Spain was about to celebrate the ninth birthday of one of their children when their sightseeing helicopter broke apart in mid air and crashed into the Hudson River between New York City and New Jersey, killing all six people aboard in the latest US aviation disaster, officials said.

Authorities including the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating Thursday’s mid-afternoon crash.

No new information on the possible cause was released on Friday morning.

The victims included Siemens executive Agustin Escobar, his wife, Merce Camprubi 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 pilot also died.

New York Helicopter, the company that owns the helicopter, said in a statement on Friday that it was profoundly saddened by the crash and referred any media inquiries to investigators.

“The safety and wellbeing of our passengers and crew has always been the cornerstone of our operations,” the statement added.

New York City mayor Eric Adams said the children were aged four, eight and 10-years-old, and the eight-year-old’s birthday was on Friday.

“So this is probably part of the normal tourist attraction of seeing the city from the skyline,” Mr Adams told Fox 5 New York.

“But it’s just a real unfortunate situation. And our heart goes out to the family members.”

Mr Escobar was in the New York area on business and his family flew in to to extend the trip a few days, said Steven Fulop, mayor of Jersey City, New Jersey, in a post on the social platform X, formerly Twitter.

He said a relative was expected to arrive Friday and officials were working with the medical examiner to release the bodies for transport back to Spain.

Mr Fulop also said dive teams were expected to return to the river on Friday to continue the search for major parts of the helicopter.

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 3pm and lasted less than 18 minutes.

Radar data shows 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.

A witness there, Bruce Wall, said he saw it “falling apart” in mid air, 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 8pm 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.

Mr 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 lawyers who have represented Mr Roth in the past.

The Federal Aviation Administration 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.

It was initially developed for the US Army before being adapted for other uses. Thousands have been manufactured over the years.

The National Transportation Safety Board said it would investigate.

Mr Escobar worked for the tech company Siemens for more than 27 years, most recently as global chief executive for rail infrastructure at Siemens Mobility, according to his LinkedIn account.

In late 2022 he briefly became president and chief executive of Siemens Spain.

In a post about the position, he thanked his family: “my endless source of energy and happiness, for their unconditional support, love… and patience.”

Mr Escobar regularly posted about the importance of sustainability in the rail industry and often travelled internationally for work, including journeying to India and the UK in the past month.

He also was vice president of the German Chamber of Commerce for Spain since 2023.

Camprubi Montal worked in Barcelona, Spain, for energy technology company Siemens Energy for about seven years, including as its global commercialization manager and as a digitalization manager, according to her LinkedIn account.

Spanish government officials said the family lived in Barcelona.

In a post on X, Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez said: “The news that has reached us about a helicopter accident in the Hudson River IS devastating.

“Five members of a Spanish family, including three children, have lost their lives. It is an unimaginable tragedy. I feel for the loss of their loved ones.”

Barcelona-based newspaper El Periodico reported that the three children attended school in the upscale neighbourhood of Sarria.

The school said in a statement on Instagram that it is “devastated by the death of a family of our community” but declined to comment to The Associated Press.

The Catalan regional president, Salvador Illa, wrote on X that he was dismayed by news of the crash.

Video of the crash suggested that a “catastrophic mechanical failure” left the pilot with no chance to save the helicopter, said Justin Green, an aviation lawyer who was a helicopter pilot in the Marine Corps.

It is possible the helicopter’s main rotors struck the tail boom, breaking it apart and causing the cabin to free fall, Mr Green said.

“They were dead as soon as whatever happened happened,” Mr Green said.

“There’s no indication they had any control over the craft. No pilot could have prevented that accident once they lost the lifts. It’s like a rock falling to the ground. It’s heartbreaking.”

The skies over Manhattan are routinely filled with planes and helicopters, both private recreational aircraft and commercial and tourist flights.

Manhattan has several helipads from which business executives and others are whisked to destinations throughout the metropolitan area.

At least 38 people have died in helicopter accidents in New York City since 1977.

A collision between a plane and a tourist helicopter over the Hudson in 2009 killed nine people, and five died in 2018 when a charter helicopter offering “open door” flights went down into the East River.

New York Helicopters also owned a Bell 206 that lost power and made an emergency landing on the Hudson during a sightseeing tour in June 2013.

The pilot managed to land safely, and he and the passengers — a family of four Swedes — were uninjured.

The National Transportation Safety Board found that a maintenance flub and an engine lubrication anomaly led to the power cut-off.

Thursday’s crash was the first for a helicopter in the city since one hit the roof of a skyscraper in 2019, killing the pilot.

The accidents — and the noise caused by helicopters — have repeatedly led some community activists and officials to propose banning or restricting traffic at Manhattan heliports.

Other recent crashes and close calls have already left some people worried about the safety of flying in the US.

Seven people were killed when a medical transport plane plummeted into a Philadelphia neighbourhood in January.

That happened two days after an American Airlines jet and an Army helicopter collided in mid air in Washington in the deadliest US air disaster in a generation.