Helicopter Crash Into Hudson River Kills Six People
The pilot and a family of five, including 3 children, from Spain died.
Horrible.
A helicopter crashed into the Hudson River on Thursday afternoon, killing at least six people. From ABC News:
All six people on board were killed when a helicopter plunged into the Hudson River by Lower Manhattan in New York City on Thursday afternoon, law enforcement sources told ABC News.
The helicopter was carrying a pilot, two adults and three children, according to law enforcement sources. The family members were tourists from Spain, sources said.
The helicopter flew around Manhattan for only 15 minutes before it crashed. It took off around 3:15 PM local time in Lower Manhattan. From CBS New York:
The helicopter involved was a Bell 206, according to the FAA. It took off from Lower Manhattan, according to the New York City’s mayor’s office. A source familiar with the investigation confirmed it was owned by a company called Meridian Helicopters out of Louisiana.
After takeoff, the helicopter apparently flew over Governor’s Island and then near the Statue of Liberty before heading up the Hudson River along Manhattan’s West Side before turning around just past the George Washington Bridge and flying back down along the Jersey side of the river before coming down near Jersey City.
The flight was the helicopter’s sixth flight of the day. CBS News reported “that for at least the last week, the helicopter has traveled to and from airports and heliports in our area, with multiple flights per day.”
Witness Dani Horbiak told ABC News, “I heard five or six loud noises that sounded almost like gunshots in the sky and saw pieces fall off, then watched it fall into the river.”
The video showed the helicopter fell “without a tail rotor or a main rotor blade.”
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Comments
It’s a wonder the damn things fly at all.
One of my companies had a fleet of helicopters. I took them a few times. Definitely akin to an amusement ride.
I did think we might crash one time when I was flying to the airport in a rain storm. We did a 360 without warning or explanation.
In about 20 years or so the company only lost one copter. It came down in a fire pond. The company built fire ponds near each of it’s buildings when it could. I guess it affected insurance rates but maybe also served as an emergency landing spot for its copters.
the men who fly them /crew them in combat (the guys who flew dustoffs in nam, for example) are among the most heroic warriors who have ever lived–their attrition rate at one point (believe was just after tet) was above thirty percent and the average ” tour ” for a dustoff pilot was about ninety days before they were killed or wounded and medically boarded out of the service–a special breed to be sure
may the victims in this accident rest in peace
I was told my company’s pilots were all ex-military.
Choppers are very unforgiving, they come down fast and hard.
Airplanes fly.
Helicopters beat the air into submission.
You beat me to it.
A helicopter is 60,000 moving parts all bent on killing you.
Poor babies, terrible sad sad news
Dear God it’s terrifying to fly anymore but I have a real fear of private helicopters
Yes I don’t know why people like to take them for site seeing or anything else for that matter.
If you’d ever done the Grand Canyon on muleback, you might reconsider.
I’ve walked down to Havasupai and walked back up. But we had some of the stuff carried by, I think, horses. Mules are more comfortable to ride than horses, that’s the luxury tour we didn’t pay for!
Grand Canyon was one of my Bucket List items my wife and I checked off last year. Unfortunately, the arthritis in my hip was acting up something terrible which precluded us from getting past the paved and well tended tourist pathways (or riding animals) so we sprung for the helicopter tour.
I spent 21 years in Naval Aviation with about half of it being in Rotary Wing (helicopter) squadrons so I’ve been on Helos….um…a lot. My wife had never been on one and was a bit trepidatious, but once we were over the Canyon, all that was gone. There are no descriptives that can adequately express how amazing that was. Well worth the money.
150,000 people died today according to worldwide statistics. 6 of them were on a helicopter over the Hudson River.
You upvoted yourself for THIS garbage post? You’re a disgrace.
Go see a doctor, Junior. You badly need to increase your Thorazine dosage.
Fentanyl might be better?
Denounce yourself and destroy your computer.
Sweet Sister Josephine!
I have to wonder if JR is this much of an a** in real life, and if so, how it managed to live this long…
If there were no names attached to comments and you came across yours, would you think it was bitter and disgusting?
Yes. And? I’m sure you had some point to make, hit-and-run troll.
horrible
rest in peace and condolences tot he families
And, of course, Jessica Tarlov (D-hack) questioned “all the recent incidents” alluding to the new Admin on Fox
I’m sure X is filled with DEI comments as well.
How could it lose both the main rotor and tail rotor?
Also, why did nobody swim out? Was it shot down or had an onboard explosion?
Because it came straight down like a free-falling elevator; the impact when it hit the water was enough to kill. If they survived that and were still conscious and uninjured, they had to undo their harnesses and that of the children and escape before they sank.
You could be right, but I have doubts about both of those steps.
I would expect at least the pilot to know how to take a fall and the metal body, seat suspension, etc. would absorb at least some of the impact. Even terminal velocity for an ungainly monster like that helicopter can’t be too high. And I might be expecting too much, but a pilot that spends all day every day giving tours over the rivers presumably knows how to swim if his life depends on it.
And then getting unstrapped and opening a door and at least floating to the surface doesn’t seem like it should be too hard. There are probably some sliding windows on it that at least the kids could try to fit through.
I’ll be interested to see what they recover or what divers find when they visit the wreck as presumably they will.
The front section of the copter came down inverted, without the tail section or the main rotor. There was no more “flying” this then one could fly a rock.
You’re underestimating the shock of an impact like that.
If the main rotor was intact, and they were high enough when the mechanical failure happened, The pilot can perform a maneuver called an “autorotation” that basically uses the energy from the main rotor as a parachute to slow down before impact. It still will basically destroy the bird, and probably injure anyone inside, but at least it’s more surviveable than an uncontrolled crash.
If the main rotor was gone, the pilot didn’t have that ability and the airframe would have struck the water at a high rate of speed. The seats have very little “suspension” (if any) other than the seat cushion itself and the airframe will crush to some degree, but there’s not much “crush area” between the bottom of the airframe and the bottom of the seats. That crush effect would do very little to reduce the shock of the impact.
And that’s assuming the aircraft hit the water pretty much straight up. If they also lost the tail rotor as is reported, that’s what counteracts the torque being imparted on the airframe by the engine, transmission and main rotor. As soon as the tail rotor goes, the airframe starts spinning uncontrollably.
With no tail or main rotors, the pilot had no control at all over the attitude of the aircraft. He was just as much a passenger at that point as the people in the back seats.
With no control, most likely it would not have hit straight, but would have hit at an angle, probably in the middle of a spin, so the lateral shock would be even more damaging to people in the seats…their arms, legs and heads are not restrained and would “whip” in the direction of the force of impact.
If they survived the impact, they would likely have been at least dazed and disoriented, if not outright unconscious, and would likely have injuries to their extremities as well.
Unstrapping, getting out and swimming to the surface sounds easy enough, but when you’re in shock, dazed, in a panic, probably severely injured and rapidly being submerged in muddy, virtually opaque water…not so much.
Navy/Marine helicopter pilots and aircrew train extensively using simulators (called “the Dunker”) on how to escape from an aircraft after a water crash.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_Underwater_Escape_Training
They train (and have to pass a qualification test) on this because it is difficult to do unless you’ve practiced how to react and know exactly what to do.
In summary, it’s not surprising to me at all that there were no survivors.
A good heart surgeon could probably explain it. A friend who is chief of pediatric cardiology once told us that when someone hits the water from a reasonable height what typically kills them is the sudden stop, a huge “slap”, tears an artery the heart or vice versa. Again, if there’s a good MD or surgeon who can chime in and correct me please do. Our friend hinted that if it weren’t for that, which almost always happens once the deceleration is great enough, the event would otherwise be survivable. It just usually isn’t. Very sad that that family and the pilot perished.
That’s true if you’re diving without a helicopter around you. At the moment of impact, the water acts like a hard surface. That’s why when you dive you create a wedge with your hands, or “cannonball” you should stick out a foot to enter the water first, to create a cavity in the water. And it’s still a slap.
But the outer shell of the helicopter and maybe some other things like your seat and your harness (you did buckle up right?) would dissipate that shock over more time.
And even if it did kill someone that way, there were 6 people aboard.
Looked like the “Jesus nut” failed to me. The whole rotor came off.
Rotor and transmission unit below it. Jesus nut in place.
What? Did you watch the video? That must have been a fall of at least eight or nine stories, likely more. Nobody was swimming out of that.
Pieces from one took out the other?
Structural failure
Report of “sound of gunshot” indicates a failure of a rotor attachment bolt, likely the main. Detached rotor blade could have sliced the tail rotor off, or runaway power could have caused a secondary failure of the tail rotor; would have also accounted for the additional “gunshot” sounds. Asymetric forces would have caused the rest of the main to fail, and would likely have caused a twisting motion to the cabin, possibly causing injuries to the occupants. Total time involved, probably less than five seconds.
The Jesus nut probably went then pieces of the main rotor hit the tail. I have a feeling they’re going to find maintenance issues.
Jesus nut is what I was thinking, but really even if it was just one of the bolts holding the blade pitch linkages…if a blade lost pitch control and went out of sync, things would go haywire very quickly. Wouldn’t take long for Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly to begin.
More than likely the power shaft from the engine seized. That puts a massive torque on the entire tail structure, and likely snapped it off at weakest point. Similarly, the transmission unit which converts horizontal to vertical rotation came off as a single piece, which means that one of the the two mounts which hold the transmission to the airframe broke. Think of this as being like shoving the car into Park at highway speeds. Things are going to happen.
When in doubt, go to “Blancolirio” on youtube for anything aircraft related.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8Q8XuqlyMQ
Almost like they are connected with a common shaft from the engine.
If its rotors came off, there isn’t much chance of anything but hitting the water like a lead weight. But its rotors coming off (all of them) is a kinda bizarre thing.
I’m guessing we find an engine came apart (the “gunshot” sounds), blew up through the rotors, and a main rotor knocked out the tail rotors.
It’s powered by a single turbine engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_206 with presumably a power takeoff to the shaft or chain back to the rear rotor. No mention of another engine for the rear rotor. Old aircraft, went out of manufacture about 15 years ago. Really wonder how this happened.
Could have been shoddy maintenance, or substandard parts (counterfeit parts are endemic in aviation; they’ve even been found on Air Force One).
And it is _not_ easy to get out of a submerged airframe, particularly if it’s rotated. Even trained military personnel, healthy and expecting to be “dunked” (training scenario) often have trouble getting free. I used to do the training; ex-USAF Life Support Systems technician (AFSC A92250T).
Even in multi-engine helicopters, the engine power is combined to drive both rotors.
A typical configuration is a combining gearbox with inputs for each of the engines with a single output forward to the main gearbox, which drives the main rotor and has a secondary output to the tail.
If the two rotors were driven by individual engines, one engine fails and you lose either your main or your tail…either way, you’re in trouble.
With a combining gearbox setup driving both the main and rear rotors, if one engine fails, both rotors still work, just at reduced power. You’re still having a bad day, but not catastrophically bad.
Even helicopters with dual “main” rotors (CH-46 and CH-47) work that way…the engine power is combined and drive both rotors via gearboxes and drive shafts.
BTW: The CH/MH-53E helicopters have three engines…still combined into a single transmission system.
According to some pictures, the rotors did not visibly detach from the helicopter before impact.
Tinfoil hat time: What info did Agustín Escobar, CEO of Siemens Spain have that made one of the three letter agencies loosen the Jesus nut?
Back in the 1980s I used to fly on helicopters back and forth to the oil rigs in the Gulf of America. About 10 days ago I got to fly to the top of the Franz Josef glacier in New Zealand on one. That flight was a lot more scenic.