The Spanish family killed in a horrific helicopter crash into the Hudson River had hired the high-flying sightseeing tour as part of a birthday celebration, officials said Friday, as the federal National Transportation Safety Board said it was investigating whether the puzzling plunge was caused by a bird strike.
While a large section of the doomed helicopter had been recovered, divers were still scouring the bottom of the river for the copter’s main rotor and tail rotor, which flew off the chopper before it crashed, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said at a Friday afternoon press conference. The entire roof structure is also missing.
“This is the first full day of our investigation, and as you can see, our investigators are still out there,” Homendy told reporters. “We have a lot of information, but we do not speculate. We need to confirm the information. That is a process that takes time.”
Avenues of investigation will include “reports of a large flock of birds in the area shortly before the crash,” Homendy said. Early speculation before the NTSB arrived was that the helicopter fell victim to a bird strike.
“We are aware of the reports and it is something we will be looking into,” she said. “Everything is on the table. We don’t rule anything out. We will not speculate on a preliminary cause.”
Tourists Agustin Escobar, the CEO of Rail Infrastructure at Siemens Mobility, his wife Merce Camprubi Montal, and their three young children were all killed in the crash, along with pilot Sean Johnson, after pieces of the helicopter, including the rotor, appeared to break off in mid-air. The helicopter overturned and dropped from the sky, hitting the water upside down.
FDNY divers recovered the victims, but no one could be saved.
The family came to New York City to celebrate the birthday of one of their children, Mayor Adams said Friday.
“We know the ages of the young people involved — 4, 8 and 10 — and unfortunately the 8-year-old it was his birthday today. So this was probably part of a normal tourist attraction of seeing the city from the skyline, but just a real unfortunate situation,” Adams said on Fox 5’s “Good Day New York.”
Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop wrote on X that Camprubi Montal was also celebrating her 40th birthday this week.
Escobar was in New York City on business and had his family fly to the Big Apple so they could “extend the trip a couple days in NYC,” the Jersey City mayor said.
“The brother in law is flying in this AM and we are working with [the medical examiner] to expedite release of the family to fly back to Spain,” Fulop said. “Take a moment today and think about this family and your family. These situations are always very difficult and sad.”
Johnson, 36, had radioed moments before plummeting into the water that he was desperately low on fuel and was heading back to the helipad, New York Helicopter CEO Michael Roth told The Telegraph.
The pilot made the radio transmission just before the 3:15 p.m. crash on the New Jersey side of the river. The helicopter took off from the Downtown Manhattan Heliport in lower Manhattan at about 2:50 p.m.
“He [the pilot] called in that he was landing and that he needed fuel, and it should have taken him about three minutes to arrive, but 20 minutes later, he didn’t arrive,” Roth told The Telegraph. “I got a call from my manager and my downtown heliport and she said she heard there was a crash, and then my phone blew up from everybody [calling]. Then one of my pilots flew over the Hudson and saw the helicopter upside down.”
“The death of the child, of any human being, is a monumental disaster,” Roth told The Telegraph. “We’re all devastated. Every employee in our company is devastated. My wife has not stopped crying.”
On Friday, New York Helicopter Tours in a statement said that it was “profoundly saddened by the tragic accident and loss of life that occurred on April 10, 2025, involving one of our helicopters in the Hudson River. At New York Helicopter Tours, the safety and well-being of our passengers and crew has always been the cornerstone of our operations. Our immediate focus is supporting the families and their loved ones affected by this tragedy, as well as fully cooperating with the FAA and NTSB investigations.”
The helicopter that crashed was built in 2004, FAA records show. It was a Bell 206 LongRanger IV, a slightly longer version of the original Bell 206 that can seat up to seven people — five passengers and two crew members.
Investigators had already recovered Johnson’s logbooks, which show the former Navy SEAL had a commercial pilot certificate and had logged 788 hours of flight time by the end of March, although it wasn’t immediately clear if all of that flight time was in the same helicopter that crashed.
A video on Johnson’s Facebook page posted last month shows him flying a Bell 206 helicopter over the Manhattan skyline.
“When it all comes together,” he wrote.
One of the first steps the investigation team will do is order New York Helicopter to freeze all of its pilot and maintenance records to make sure that the company has answered all “periodic directives from the FAA,” Peter Goelz, a former managing director for the NTSB told CNN Friday.
“This was clearly a catastrophic failure and very unusual, where the videotape [showed] the aircraft going down without its tail rotor and having lost its main rotors,” Goelz told CNN. “There are error-worthiness directives that told the company to check certain parts of its rotor engine assembly. And the FAA and the NTSB will want to see that those work — that that work has been completed.”
Video of the crash from different angles may also help investigators discover if something struck the helicopter before it fell apart, he said. The NTSB was asking any witnesses with video of the crash to email them at witness@ntsb.gov.
The copter in the fatal crash first headed up the Hudson River to the George Washington Bridge, where it turned around and then headed back south, flying along the New Jersey side of the river before suddenly dropping upside-down into the river near Hoboken, Mayor Adams and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Thursday.
The flight lasted less than 18 minutes, officials said.
New York Helicopter filed for bankruptcy in 2019, claiming it had hundreds of thousands in debts. A large portion of the debts, about $114,000, were for “repair services.”
The company was allowed to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, where a trustee was assigned to oversee the liquidation of some assets and prioritize debts. The bankruptcy ended in 2022, according to court records.
New York Helicopter has mixed reviews on Yelp, with at least one customer complaining that the company didn’t do proper safety checks before takeoff. Other customers said employees were rude and charged unexpected fees.
“Extreme negligence of security protocols that must be associated with a helicopter ride,” said customer Kumar Sourabh, who visited the Big Apple from California. “I have been in a helicopter ride before and had a 180 degree opposite experience. There was no briefing provided on security measures. As soon as the aircraft landed, and without any notice or instructions, as the helicopter blades were running on full sound, the owner rushed to us and started to pull us down.”
A Bell 206 helicopter owned by New York Helicopter crashed into the Hudson River in June 2013.
The helicopter lost power, and the pilot made an emergency landing. No injuries were reported, and the NTSB found that a maintenance flub and an engine lubrication anomaly led to the power cutoff.
Thursday’s crash was the first for a helicopter in the city since one hit the roof of a skyscraper in 2019, killing the pilot.
At least 38 people have died in helicopter accidents in New York City since 1977. A collision between a plane and a tourist helicopter over the Hudson in 2009 killed nine people, and five died in 2018 when a charter helicopter offering “open door” flights went down into the East River.
After Thursday’s crash, Fulop called for an end of sightseeing helicopter tours over the Hudson River.
“This has been an issue we have pushed at the federal level for a decade with no response,” he wrote on X. “This is not the first crash that has happened and the reality is that the airspace here is too crowded above a densely populated area to allow this.
“These tourist helicopters should not be allowed and hopefully this terrible tragedy brings some change so that it will never happen again to any other family,” he wrote.
On Friday Mayor Adams disagreed with Fulop’s assessment, saying on 1010 WINS that the sightseeing tours are part of the “attractiveness” of the city.
On NY1, Adams did leave the door open for tighter restrictions on non-emergency helicopter traffic.
“I remember in 1977 when the helicopter crashed into the PanAm building, we made adjustments and modifications, you can always adjust and modify based on these circumstances,” he said. “There were 17 crashes over the approximately 40 years. Those are numbers that you have to look at when you make these adjustments.”
With Rocco Parascandola, John Annese and News Wire Services
This is a continuing story. Check back for updates.