New York Helicopter Tours shuts down after Hudson River crash, FAA says
FAA grounds helicopter company after Hudson crash
The FAA has grounded New York Helicopter Charter Inc. following last week’s deadly crash into the Hudson River that killed six people — including a family of five visiting from Spain.
NEW YORK CITY - The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said Sunday the NYC helicopter tour company whose sightseeing chopper broke apart in flight last week and crashed into the Hudson River is shutting down operations immediately.
What we know:
The FAA, in a statement posted on X, also said it would launch an immediate review of New York Helicopter Tours' operating license and safety record.
The move came hours after New York Sen. Chuck Schumer had called on federal authorities to revoke the operating permits of New York Helicopter Tours.
At a news conference Sunday, before the announcement by the FAA, Schumer said the company should be required to halt all flights as the National Transportation Safety Board investigates the deadly crash.
The Senate Democrat minority leader also called on the FAA to ramp up safety inspections for other helicopter tour companies, accusing them of "cutting corners and putting profits over people."
"One of the things we can do to honor those lives and try to save others is to make sure it doesn’t happen again," Schumer said. "We know there is one thing for sure about New York City’s helicopter tour companies: they have a deadly track record."
Schumer urges FAA to halt flights by tour company in fatal crash
"The company was operating under the lowest bar of safety," Schumer said Sunday, citing that nearly 11 people have died on the company's flights.
The president of New York Helicopter Tours, Michael Roth, did not respond to phone and email inquiries. The company said in a statement published on its website that it was cooperating with authorities in the investigation.
The other side:
In response to Schumer's calls for more oversight, an industry group, the Eastern Region Helicopter Council, said Manhattan’s sightseeing choppers "already operate under the most stringent of regulations."
"We stand ready to work with leaders on finding ways to ensure the safety and preservation of our businesses and aviation community," the group said.
Dig deeper:
Critics of the industry have long sought to limit or entirely ban nonessential helicopter flights from taking off above the city, though they have had limited success. After New York City capped the number of flights that could take off from Manhattan heliports at 30,000 annually in 2016, many companies moved operations to New Jersey.
Two years later, in 2018, five people died when a helicopter offering "open door" flights crashed in the East River after a passenger’s restraint tether snagged on a fuel switch, stopping the engine.
A helicopter is pulled from the East River on March 12, 2018 in New York City. Five people died after the helicopter made an emergency landing and flipped upside down on Sunday night, trapping the passengers inside. (Photo by James Devaney/Getty Imag
In the last two decades, five helicopters on commercial sightseeing flights have fallen into the Hudson and East rivers as a result of mechanical failures, pilot errors or collisions, killing 20 people.
What happened on Thursday?
Timeline:
At a press conference on Thursday, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the aircraft, a Bell 206 flying for New York Helicopters, took off from a Lower Manhattan heliport at 2:59 p.m. It flew along the Manhattan shoreline before losing control near Pier A Park in Hoboken at approximately 3:08 p.m.
"The propeller just exploded and scattered, right," one witness said. "After that, we saw the plane just spiraling down like, going from left to right, like that, and we were like, ‘Oh my God.’"
The only evidence at this point in the investigation is eyewitness accounts and bystander video, both of which suggest that the helicopter’s rotor blades – and maybe even the entire assembly – separated mid-flight, with catastrophic consequences.
NTSB press conference on Hudson helicopter crash
The NTSB and New Jersey officials hold a press conference following the crash of a helicopter into the Hudson River on Thursday.
On Friday, officials confirmed the preliminary cause of the crash had not yet been determined and emphasized that they would not speculate.
They said the current focus is on collecting perishable evidence from the accident site. Investigators have recovered the rotor but are still searching for the main rotor and the tail rotor. Officials urged anyone who may have seen anything unusual to come forward and share that information.
Who were the victims?
The victims included passengers Agustin Escobar, 49, his wife, Mercè Camprubí Montal, 39, and their three children, Victor, 4, Mercedes, 8, and Agustin, 10. The pilot was Seankese Johnson, 36, a U.S. Navy veteran who received his commercial pilot’s license in 2023.
Johnson was a Navy SEAL who often shared career highlights as a helicopter pilot on social media. In March, he updated his Facebook profile photo to a screengrab showing him at the controls of a helicopter, with Freedom Tower and the Manhattan skyline in the background.