The helicopter was carrying six people, including three children, and an executive from Siemens — a German multinational technology company. It took off from a Manhattan heliport and followed a familiar path: circling the Statue of Liberty, rolling north along the Hudson toward the George Washington Bridge, and then turning south. According to analysis by CNN and FlightRadar24, the plane crashed into the water about 16 minutes after takeoff.Witnesses described seeing the helicopter flip over and spiral, scattering debris across the river before crashing near the New Jersey shore.”The helicopter was kind of nose-first, just a little bit, and I saw the propeller separate from the helicopter. It was just spinning in the air. There was nothing attached to it,” Sarah Jane Raymond Ryer, who watched the crash unfold, told CNN affiliate WCBS. A video obtained by CNN shows the rotor blades detaching from the helicopter and flying through the air.Jersey City resident Jane Link recalled hearing a startling sound. “It really sounded like an engine was going off. I looked out my window. I saw some people running towards the water, and some people were acting pretty normal. So, I thought, ‘This can’t be anything.’ Then I started hearing all these sirens,” she told WCBS.”What we know about this accident that killed everyone on board is this: Our hearts go out to the families of those who were on board,” Adams said at a news conference. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez expressed his condolences, calling the incident an “unimaginable tragedy.” The pilot was also killed, though officials did not release his identity. CNN has reached out to the New York Police Department and the U.S. Coast Guard for more information about the victims. New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the helicopter took off from a downtown Manhattan heliport at 2:59 p.m., following a popular sightseeing route. After circling the Statue of Liberty, it flew north along the Hudson River, reaching the George Washington Bridge by 3:08 p.m. It then turned south along the New Jersey coastline, where it lost control shortly after, Tisch said. At 3:17 p.m., multiple 911 calls to New A crash near Pier A Park in Hoboken, New Jersey, was reported. Witnesses said the helicopter appeared to stop in midair before breaking into pieces, consistent with initial emergency reports, Tisch said.Jersey City resident Ipsita Banigree described the sound as “such a loud noise. It felt like thunder,” she told WCBS. “Then I saw these black particles flying. Again, I thought it was maybe just dust or birds, and then we heard all the emergency vehicles and sirens. I was like, ‘Okay, what’s going on?’”In 2015, a pilot for a New York helicopter charter company was forced to land in New Jersey after briefly flying 20 feet in the air. An initial inspection found that parts of the helicopter “may have been stripped of corrosion” and that some of the helicopter’s components were “considered unserviceable,” according to an FAA inspector at the time. The same helicopter had previously crashed in Chile in 2010.2 / 2In 2013, a company pilot was forced to land a helicopter carrying four passengers in the water near Manhattan after hearing an “explosion” followed by an “engine out warning horn.” The pilot inflated the helicopter’s float and got the passengers to safety in a boat.Maintenance records are not publicly available, and the NTSB limits what companies can disclose while an investigation is ongoing.”(The pilot) called to say he was landing and needed fuel, and he should have been there about three minutes, but 20 minutes later, he didn’t,” Roth told the Telegraph on Thursday.Maintenance records are not publicly available and the NTSB limits what companies can release while an investigation is ongoing.President Trump called the incident “horrible.””Terrible accident,” he wrote on Truth Social. “The video of the accident is horrific. God bless the families and friends of the victims,” he added, in part.
