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    Missing Rotor Is Recovered From Site of Helicopter Crash in Hudson River

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    The aircraft was on a sightseeing flight when it suddenly broke apart in midair, its rotor blades falling separately toward the water.When rescue crews reached the passenger compartment of the helicopter that plunged into the Hudson River on Thursday, killing all six of its occupants, the aircraft was missing several critical components, including the rotor and blades that had kept it aloft.On Monday afternoon, four days after the fatal crash, investigators fished several of those missing pieces out of the river, according to the National Transportation Safety Board, the federal agency that is leading the investigation to determine the cause.Divers from the New York Police Department, working with the United States Army Corps of Engineers and the Jersey City Office of Emergency Management, recovered the helicopter’s main rotor system, its transmission and roof beam, the safety board said late Monday.The helicopter, a Bell 206L-4 LongRanger operated by New York Helicopter Tours, was on a sightseeing flight over the river on Thursday when it suddenly broke apart in midair.Videos posted on social media showed the rotor blades and part of the aircraft’s tail falling separately toward the water. The main body of the helicopter plummeted into the water on the western side of the river near Jersey City, N.J., and then floated upside down.The passengers — Agustín Escobar, Mercè Camprubí Montal and their three young children, Agustín, Mercè and Víctor — were all killed. The pilot, Seankese Johnson, also died.The chief executive of New York Helicopter, Michael Roth, said last week that he had no information about what had happened to the helicopter, which took off from a heliport in Lower Manhattan and was headed back there when it crashed.The Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates commercial air transportation, said on Sunday night that New York Helicopter had stopped taking customers on tours after the crash.Then on Monday night, the F.A.A. issued an emergency order to shut down New York Helicopter for safety reasons. The agency said that, after the crash, the company’s director of operations, Jason Costello, had said it would suspend operations. But within half an hour, Mr. Roth contacted the agency to say he had not authorized a suspension of operations and that Mr. Costello no longer worked for him.The F.A.A. called the “intentional firing” of Mr. Costello a retaliation and determined that it left the company without “sufficient qualified management and technical personnel to ensure the safety of its operations.”The transportation safety board said that its efforts to recover pieces of the helicopter had concluded. But its investigation is just getting underway.The safety board’s staff will conduct interviews and study the wreckage and the operator’s maintenance records to try to determine why the helicopter had broken apart. Its investigations often take several months and sometimes are not concluded for more than a year.On Tuesday, the safety board is holding a hearing to discuss its final report on a fire aboard a ship in Newark, in which two members of Newark’s fire department died. That fire happened in July 2023. More

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      Charter Company in Fatal Helicopter Crash Had Prior Mechanical Failures

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      The firm that operated the helicopter that crashed in the Hudson River on Thursday, killing all six people aboard, has a long history of flying excursions around New York City, some of which have encountered safety problems.In 2013, one of the helicopters operated by the company, New York Helicopter Charter, was carrying a family of four on a sightseeing tour when it suddenly lost power. It was forced to make an emergency landing in the Hudson River near the Upper West Side of Manhattan.About two years later, another of its helicopters crashed while hovering 20 feet off the ground after taking off in northern New Jersey.In that episode, the pilot reported that the helicopter had started to spin out of control before he put it down for a “hard landing.” An investigation found that the aircraft had previously been involved in a hard landing in Chile in 2010 and that a drive shaft that was “unairworthy” was installed on the aircraft, according to a report by the National Transportation Safety Board.The investigation found that the faulty drive shaft had been painted by a previous owner, making it impossible to tell whether it had been part of the helicopter during the earlier hard landing.The investigators found that the probable cause of the crash was “deliberate concealment and reuse” of the faulty component “by unknown personnel.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What Is the Bell 206L Helicopter?

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      The sightseeing helicopter that crashed into the Hudson River on Thursday, killing six people, was a Bell 206L LongRanger, a common single-engine aircraft long used for law enforcement missions, medical lifts, newsgathering and aerial tourism.The 206L has been in use for decades; its maker, Bell Textron, an aviation company based in Texas, took it out of production less than 10 years ago. With upkeep, the model is seen as safe and reliable, according to Greg Feith, a former National Transportation Safety Board investigator who has flown one. “It’s a tried and true aircraft,” Mr. Feith said, adding, “As long as the maintenance has been done, and done properly, it’s going to be a reliable aircraft.” The helicopter is versatile and light, can carry up to six occupants, and flies at maximum speeds of about 115 miles per hour, Mr. Feith said.Over the last 25 years, Bell 206 helicopters — a family of similar models that includes the Bell 206L — have been involved in 82 fatal accidents in the United States, according to National Transportation Safety Board records. A spokeswoman for Bell, Lindsey Hughes, said in a statement, “Bell is following this tragedy as it develops, but we must direct any questions to the NTSB.” The 206L has been particularly popular with helicopter sightseeing tour companies, according to Shawn Pruchnicki, a former airline pilot and an assistant professor at the Center for Aviation Studies at Ohio State University.Mr. Pruchnicki said that he had greater concerns about the safety record of aerial sightseeing companies than the model of helicopter. “The helicopter tours do have a problematic record,” he said, “and they have had for a long time.” Mr. Feith, the former N.T.S.B investigator, said he would want to know the number of flights the aircraft had flown on Thursday and whether it had recent maintenance work done. “You want to see if there was evidence of fatigue, overstress” on the helicopter, Mr. Feith said. “There are a lot of elements to be explored.”Santul Nerkar More

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      Helicopter Crashes Into Hudson River, Killing Six

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      An executive from Spain, his wife and three children died in the crash, along with the helicopter’s pilot, officials said.A sightseeing helicopter tumbled out of the sky and plunged into the Hudson River across from Manhattan on Thursday afternoon, killing all six people aboard, including three children, officials said.Video footage showed the helicopter falling end over end and crashing into the water just off Jersey City, N.J., at high speed at about 3:15 p.m. Witnesses reported hearing a loud bang and seeing the helicopter hit the river without at least one of its rotor blades.Two adults and three children from Spain — Agustín Escobar, an executive with the technology company Siemens, and his family — were pulled from the helicopter or the frigid river but none survived, a senior law enforcement official said on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the crash. The pilot was also killed.Two of the passengers were alive when divers pulled them from the water but later died, New York City’s police commissioner, Jessica S. Tisch, said at a news conference.“Six innocent souls have lost their lives, and we pray for them and their families,” Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York said.It was the deadliest helicopter crash in New York City in at least seven years.The helicopter, a Bell 206, was operated by New York Helicopter, which runs sightseeing tours for several hundred dollars a flight. The company’s chief executive, Michael Roth, said he did not know what had happened to the aircraft, which he had leased from a company in Louisiana. The National Transportation Safety Board was leading the investigation into the crash.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Two Men Charged in Deadly Boat Accident in Hudson River

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      A 47-year-old woman and a 7-year-old boy drowned after the private boat capsized in July 2022. Prosecutors said the boat was being operated recklessly.Two New Jersey men who owned and operated a 24-foot boat that capsized in the Hudson River, killing two people, including a 7-year-old boy, were arrested and charged on Thursday with misconduct and neglect that prosecutors say caused the deaths.The men, Richard Cruz and Jaime Pinilla Gomez, took paying customers on boat excursions on the vessel despite not having the required credentials and certifications, according to federal prosecutors in Manhattan. Mr. Cruz charged about $200 per hour for the tours, prosecutors said.When the boat capsized, prosecutors said, it had more people on board than was allowed, and was traveling “at a high rate of speed” on a day with high winds and heavy seas.The vessel, called “Stimulus Money,” was carrying 13 people after a trip around the Statue of Liberty on July 12, 2022, when it overturned, throwing all the passengers overboard, according to a criminal complaint. Lindelia Vasquez, 47, and Julian Vasquez, 7, were trapped underneath the boat and drowned, the complaint said. Several others, including a 51-year-old woman, were hospitalized.Lindelia Vasquez, in a family photo.Family photoDamian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement on Thursday that federal regulations and safety protocols exist to protect passengers.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More