Witnesses Saw Helicopter 'Falling Apart'

The Hudson River helicopter crash that killed six people on Thursday involved an aircraft from a company with a history of mechanical failures. The New York Times reports that a helicopter operated by New York Helicopter Charter carrying a family of Spanish tourists made an emergency landing in the Hudson in 2013 after it lost power, but nobody was seriously injured. In 2015, another helicopter operated by the company crashed while hovering around 20 feet off the ground,

• Witnesses saw the helicopter fall apart. "I heard some crackling, looked up and then just saw (it) falling apart," witness Bruce Wall said, per WABC. "And then maybe 15 feet in the air after the tail came off, broke off, and then (it) just sort of tumbled into the water with the propeller still in the air." The helicopter crashed around 18 minutes after it took off from a downtown heliport at 3pm, NBC New York reports.

• Investigations. After the 2015 incident, the National Transportation Safety Board found that an "untrustworthy" drive shaft had been installed by a previous owner after a hard landing in Chile, the Times reports. The crash was blamed on "deliberate concealment and reuse" of the component "by unknown personnel." That helicopter, like the one that crashed Thursday, was a Bell 206 leased from Louisiana company Meridian Helicopters. The 2013 emergency landing, which also involved a Bell 206, was blamed on "a maintenance flub and an engine lubrication anomaly," per the AP.
• "These are machines and they break." Michael Roth, CEO of New York Helicopter Charter, tells the New York Post that he is "absolutely devastated." "The only thing I know by watching a video of the helicopter falling down, that the main rotor blades weren't on the helicopter," he says. "The only thing I could guess—I got no clue—is that it either had a bird strike or the main rotor blades failed," Roth says. "This is horrific. But ... these are machines and they break." The Times reports that court records show the company has been having financial problems and one of its helicopters was repossessed in December.
• "Catastrophic mechanical failure." Aviation lawyer Justin Green, who was a helicopter pilot in the Marine Corps, tells the AP that video of the crash suggests a "catastrophic mechanical failure" occurred. He believes the main rotors may have hit the tail boom. "They were dead as soon as whatever happened happened," Green says. "There's no indication they had any control over the craft. No pilot could have prevented that accident once they lost the lifts. It's like a rock falling to the ground. It's heartbreaking."

• Victims. The crash killed the pilot, whose name has not been released, and a family of tourists from Spain. Top Siemens executive Agustin Escobar, his wife, Mercè Camprubí Montal, and their three children died in the crash, the AP reports. Montal was a global manager at Siemens Energy.
• Statement from Trump. "The footage of the accident is horrendous," President Trump said in a post on Truth Social. "God bless the families and friends of the victims. Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, and his talented staff are on it. Announcements as to exactly what took place, and how, will be made shortly!"

(More helicopter crash stories.)