The pilot flying a helicopter that crashed into the Hudson River, killing him and his five passengers, had radioed that he was coming in for fuel moments before the chopper broke apart and crashed.
“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,” Michael Roth, 71, owner of New York Helicopter, said, according to The Telegraph.
“We’re all devastated. Every employee in our company is devastated. My wife has not stopped crying,” he said.
“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. Then one of my pilots flew over the Hudson and saw the helicopter upside down,” he said.
Siemens executive Agustin Escobar, his wife and their three children were killed in the crash.
“The death of the child of any human being is a monumental disaster,” Roth said.
The New York Post noted that a number of theories are likely to be pursued when the National Transportation Safety Board investigates the calamity.
Although initial information discounts the possibility of a drone striking the helicopter, the Post said a collision with a drone or bird will be one line of inquiry.
“If it was struck by something — either a drone or something else like a bird — did over-correction exacerbate what could have been a manageable thing into a tragedy?” the Post quoted a source as saying.
Because the helicopter fell apart in the air, a possible failure of the main hardware connecting the rotors to the fuselage is another target for investigation.
The rotors have not yet been recovered.
Justin Green, an aviation lawyer who was a helicopter pilot in the Marine Corps, said he believes “catastrophic mechanical failure” took place.
“It is possible the helicopter’s main rotors struck the tail boom — breaking it apart and causing the cabin to free-fall and plunge into the frigid waters, Green said
“They were dead as soon as whatever happened happened,” Green said. “There’s no indication they had any control over the craft. No pilot could have prevented that accident once they lost the lifts. It’s like a rock falling to the ground. It’s heartbreaking.”
The pilot was Sean Johnson, 36, a Navy veteran who had flown in Chicago before recently moving to New York City, according to the Gothamist.
“ I’m just at loss for words. I don’t even know what happened,” Johnson’s wife Kathryn, who no longer lives with her husband, said.
She said he took multiple jobs after leaving the Navy but he “always wanted to fly.”
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