Lionel Carles and his wife and young son arrived from Nice, France, on Wednesday with a list of things to see and do in New York City: St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Rockefeller Center, Top of the Rock, Fifth Avenue. And, an exciting highlight — a helicopter tour of the skyline.

Rafn Herlufsen, visiting from Iceland with his teenage son, made similar plans: a Knicks game at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday, a helicopter tour later in the week.

And Agustín Escobar, a Spanish executive with the technology giant Siemens, bought one of the longer flights offered by the tour company, New York Helicopter. Five tickets, for himself, his wife and their three children for a trip that would last 20 minutes and include a George Washington Bridge flyover.

Each family arrived at their assigned time on Thursday at a helipad near the South Street Seaport for their flight with New York Helicopter. They listened to safety briefings and posed for photographs in front of the chopper they flew that day, tail number N216MH.

By day’s end, that helicopter would come apart in the sky and crash into the Hudson River, and one of those families would be killed, along with their pilot.

The other two families would — stoically, awkwardly — tour the city, putting on happy faces while coming to grips with their own very, very close calls.