NEW YORK: A tourist helicopter plummeted upside down into New York City’s Hudson River on Thursday killing all six people on board, including a Spanish family with three children and the pilot, Mayor Eric Adams said.

Agustin Escobar, CEO of Rail Infrastructure at Siemens Mobility, the train transportation arm of Germany-based technology company Siemens, was among those killed, a company spokesperson said.

“We are deeply saddened by the tragic helicopter crash in which Agustin Escobar and his family lost their lives,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

Video of the crash showed what appeared to be a large object plunging into the river, followed seconds later by what appeared to be a helicopter blade. Afterwards, emergency and police boats were seen circling around a patch of river where the helicopter was submerged, with only what appeared to be the aircraft’s landing gear poking above the water’s surface.

The Bell 206 chopper, operated by New York Helicopter Tours, departed at about 3pm ET from a downtown helicopter pad and flew north over the Hudson River.

It turned south when it reached the George Washington Bridge and crashed minutes later, hitting the water upside down and sinking near Lower Manhattan.

Dani Horbiak, a 29-year-old resident of Jersey City, New Jersey, said she witnessed the crash from her window while working from home. “I looked out my window right here, and I saw the helicopter falling to pieces, and I watched multiple pieces splashed down into the river below, and I was wondering what happened,” she said. “But I’m putting the pieces together it does sound like I was maybe hearing the propeller smacking into something.”

Published in Dawn, April 12th, 2025