A sightseeing helicopter carrying a Spanish family broke apart midair and crashed upside-down into the Hudson River between Manhattan and the New Jersey waterfront on Thursday afternoon, April 10, killing all six people aboard, officials confirmed.
The victims included a family of five from Spain – Siemens executive Agustin Escobar, his wife Mercè Camprubí Montal, and their three children aged 4, 5, and 11 – along with the 36-year-old pilot, according to multiple reports.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said the flight departed from a downtown Manhattan heliport around 3 p.m. He confirmed that the bodies of the deceased had been recovered and removed from the water.
The Bell 206 helicopter, operated by New York Helicopters, was on a tourist sightseeing trip when the incident occurred at approximately 3:17 p.m. near Hoboken, New Jersey. The aircraft had taken off from the Wall St. Heliport in Lower Manhattan just minutes earlier, according to officials.
Multiple witnesses described seeing the helicopter come apart in midair before crashing. Bruce Wall, who witnessed the incident, said he saw the helicopter “falling apart” in midair, with the tail and propeller coming off. The propeller was still spinning without the aircraft as it fell, he added.
Lesly Camacho, a hostess at a restaurant along the river in Hoboken, New Jersey, provided a firsthand account of the tragedy. “There was a bunch of smoke coming out. It was spinning pretty fast, and it landed in the water really hard,” she said in a phone interview.
The flight path of the helicopter included a journey up the Hudson River toward the George Washington Bridge before turning back south along the New Jersey side of the river, investigators reported. The crash occurred during the return leg of this route.
Videos posted to social media showed parts of the chopper splashing into the water separately from the main body of the aircraft. The helicopter appeared to have suffered what aviation experts are describing as a “catastrophic mechanical failure” that left the pilot unable to maintain control.
Weather conditions at the time included overcast skies, though visibility over the river was not substantially impaired. Rescue crews faced challenging conditions with water temperatures around 45 degrees Fahrenheit. Winds were gusting up to 21 mph, with the helicopter flying at an altitude of approximately 1,000 feet, well below the cloud ceiling.
The Federal Aviation Administration identified the helicopter as a Bell 206, a model widely used in commercial and government aviation, including by sightseeing companies, television news stations, and police departments. The model was initially developed for the U.S. Army before being adapted for civilian uses, with thousands manufactured over the years.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez expressed that the crash was an unimaginable tragedy for the families and loved ones of the victims.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has launched an investigation into the cause of the crash. Early reports suggest the focus may be on a potential tail-rotor drive failure. Previous directives for Bell 206L helicopters had addressed issues involving loss of tail-rotor drive due to joint failures.
The rescue operation centered near a long maintenance pier for a ventilation tower serving the Holland Tunnel on the New Jersey side of the river. Fire trucks and other emergency vehicles lined nearby streets with their lights flashing as recovery efforts proceeded.
This incident marks the latest in a series of aviation disasters in the New York City area and across the United States. Since 1977, at least 38 people have died in helicopter crashes in the New York City vicinity. In 2018, a charter helicopter offering “open door” flights crashed into the East River, killing five passengers. In 2009, a collision between a private plane and a tourist helicopter over the Hudson River resulted in nine fatalities.
More recently, a medical transport plane crashed in a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania neighborhood in January 2025, killing seven people. That accident occurred just two days after an American Airlines jet and an Army helicopter collided midair in Washington, D.C., in what has been described as the deadliest U.S. air disaster in a generation.
The skies over Manhattan routinely accommodate numerous aircraft, including private recreational planes, commercial flights, and tourist helicopters. The island features several heliports that transport business executives and tourists to destinations throughout the metropolitan area.
The crash has prompted fresh calls to review or restrict helicopter traffic at Manhattan heliports, with safety advocates and some local officials citing ongoing concerns about both safety risks and noise pollution.
