New York: Witnesses and a law enforcement official said a helicopter broke in the air and hung upside down on the Hudson River between Manhattan and the New Jersey waterfront killed six people Thursday in the latest high-profile aviation disaster in the United States.
The New York Fire Department said it received a report on the crash, which at 3:17 p.m., all six people were killed. The official has no right to speak out publicly and do so under anonymity.
Witness Bruce Wall said he saw the helicopter “crashed” in the air, with his tail and propeller falling off. He said the propeller was still spinning without the plane falling.
Lesly Camacho, the hostess of a restaurant along the river in Hoboken, New Jersey, said she saw the helicopter spin uncontrollably before hitting the water.
“There’s a lot of smoke coming out. It’s spinning very fast, it’s really hard to land in the water,” she said in a phone interview.
Video posted on social media shows a portion of the kitchen knife splashing into the water, the collapsed plane was flooded and the rescue ship hovered.
The sky was gloomy at that time, but the visibility on the river was not greatly damaged. Rescue personnel must deal with 45 degrees of water temperature.
The Federal Aviation Administration identified the helicopter as the Bell 206, a model widely used in commercial and government aviation, including through sightseeing companies, television news stations and police departments. It was originally developed for the U.S. Army before adapting to other uses. Over the years, thousands of people have made it.
The National Transportation Safety Commission said it would investigate.
The rescue ship approaches the end of a long maintenance dock, and the ventilation tower serves the Dutch tunnel on the New Jersey side of the river. Fire trucks and other emergency vehicles flashed in nearby streets.
Manhattan’s sky is often filled with airplanes and helicopters, including private recreational planes as well as commercial and tourist flights. Manhattan has several helicopters that can drive business executives and others to destinations throughout the metropolitan area.
Over the years, there were several crashes between a plane on the Hudson River and a tourist helicopter in 2009, killing nine people, and a 2018 Charter helicopter crash providing an “open door” flight that headed to the East River, causing five people to five.
In January, a medical transport plane killed seven people when it was hit near Philadelphia in January. This happened two days after American Airlines jets and an Army helicopter were in central Washington, the deadliest air disaster in the United States.
Crash accidents and other close-range calls have caused some people to worry about the safety of the flight.
