Police and fire department divers were searching Friday for the main and rear rotors of a sightseeing helicopter that broke apart in midair and crashed into the Hudson River between New York City and New Jersey, killing all six people aboard, including a family of five from Spain. Those parts, along with the helicopter's transmission, the roof and tail structures have not been found since the crash Thursday afternoon, Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, told reporters at a briefing in Jersey City, New Jersey. Officials also identified the pilot as 36-year-old Seankese Johnson.
Hemendy said the NTSB would not speculate on the cause of the crash so early in the investigation. "We are very factual and we will provide that in due course," she said.
Visibility was low in the murky river and divers were using sonar to hunt for the missing pieces. The pilot and passenger cabin of the aircraft was pulled from the river Thursday night.
The victims from Spain included Siemens executive Agustin Escobar, 49, his wife, Mercè Camprubí Montal, 39, who had been a global manager at an energy technology company, and their three children, Victor, 4, Mercedes, 8, and Agustin, 10. Mercedes would have turned 9 on Friday, officials said.
Johnson regularly celebrated his career milestones as a helicopter pilot on social media. In March, he changed his Facebook profile to a screengrab of him piloting a helicopter with a view of Freedom Tower and the Manhattan skyline in the background. In the summer of 2023, he announced that he was flying a Blackhawk helicopter to fight fires for a Montana-based firm. "Long hours and painstaking work to get to this moment. Thank you for all the love and support from those who've helped me get here," Johnson wrote.
In another aviation accident on Friday, three people were killed and one was injured when a small plane crashed in Boca Raton, Florida.
Community activists and officials have repeatedly proposed banning or restricting traffic at Manhattan heliports, citing New York City's history of fatal helicopter accidents that have killed 38 people since 1977 as well as the relentless noise.
In an interview with The Associated Press, state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, a Democrat who represents a district on the west side of Manhattan along the Hudson River, said the crash was a "reminder of our worst fears of tourist helicopters" and called for restrictions on flights over the city. "Having non-essential flights over densely populated areas is a recipe for disaster," he said.
Robert Carroll, a Democratic member of the state Assembly, called for a stop to all sightseeing and commuter-related helicopter flights until the cause of Thursday's crash is determined. Adams, however, said he doesn't want to restrict such flights until the investigation is complete. "We have thousands of flights using helicopters and tourism," he said on 1010 WINS news radio. "People want to see the city from the sky. At the heart of this is safety. It must be done right. We must look at the maintenance record of this helicopter. We must look at the record of the pilot. And we need to find out what happened."
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.
The doomed flight departed a downtown heliport around 3 pm. Thursday and lasted less than 18 minutes. Radar data shows it flew north along the Manhattan skyline then south toward the Statue of Liberty. Rescue boats circled the submerged aircraft within minutes of impact. The pilot and passengers were removed from the water but could not be saved, officials said.
According to FAA records, the helicopter had a maintenance issue last September involving its transmission assembly. An entry in the agency's Service Difficulty Reporting System shows the transmission assembly had metal in oil, a sign of wear, and a bearing in the transmission was found to be flaking. The helicopter had logged 12,728 total flight hours at the time, according to the records.