Five Spaniards They died Wednesday when a helicopter crashed in the waters of the Hudson River in New Yorkas confirmed by the mayor the city, Eric Adams.
It’s about two adults and three childrenbelonging to the same familyplus the aircraft pilot. Spanish sources in New York also confirmed to Efe the information, without offering more details.
At a press conference, Mayor Eric Adams confirmed that There were no survivors in the accident And that it was “a family and a pilot from Spain”, specifying that there were two adults and three children among the passengers, in addition to the driver.
The helicopter belonged to a tourist company called New York Helicopter Tours, which offers New York panoramic visits from the sky.
According to the tracking of the aircraft in Flight Radar, at the time of the accident the helicopter (a Bell 206) carried 15 minutes of flight and 6 kilometers tours.
The device left Downtown Manhattan; He headed south before flying north to the George Washington bridge, and then went back to the south following the New Jersey coast, when He lost control to Hoboken.
The ship crashed at 15:15 local time (19:15 local time) of one day with very low temperatures (around 5 degrees Celsius), and according to the images leaked by several televisions, You can see a helicopter with the game departing falling loudly to the river.
The loud fall of the water helicopter mobilized divers in the Fire Department, as well as the New York Police and neighboring New Jersey, who took the bodies out of the water.
The police officer, Jessica Tisch, placed the accident at 3:17 p.m. local time (approximately 19:15), after which emergency services came quickly; The divers recovered four bodies and two other passengers died in the hospital.
The Governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, confirmed to the media that six people have died, with a statement that “six innocent souls have lost their life” and added that the accident “destroys your heart and is worse than we could have imagined.”
At least 32 people have died in helicopter accidents in New York since 1977; The most recent in 2019, when a helicopter used for executive trips collided with the roof of a Manhattan skyscraper in a restricted airspace and the pilot died, according to ABC.
An accident similar to this Thursday could be the one that occurred in 2018, when five of the six occupants of a helicopter who had taken off from New Jersey and fell to the icy waters of the East River, the other river that bathes Manhattan.
The helicopter lost the blades in the air
The helicopter He lost the blades In the air before falling into the water, according to the images that have appeared in several media and showing the helicopter blades still turning alone in the sky, separated from the body of the ship, which also seems to have lost its tail. Everything happened in seconds, said face -to -face witnesses to the New York Post newspaper.
The executive director of the tourist company New York Helicopter Tours that operated the device, Michael Roth, told that means to be “devastated” and added: “I have not seen anything like that in the 30 years that I have been in the helicopter business (…) The only thing that occurs to me, I have no idea, is that either a bird crashed (with the blades) or that the blades failed, “Roth ventured, who said he was” absolutely devastated. “
When falling into the water, the aircraft turned around and It was with the base floating and the cabin inside the Hudson wateron a day when temperatures ranged Between 0 and 5 degrees.
For that reason, police and firefighter divers quickly undertook rescue work to get the victims from the helicopter. According to the authorities, Two of them were rescued alive but died shortly after.
