Helicopter crashes in New York City’s Hudson River; sources say 6 dead

  • 🔧 At about Midnight EST I am going to completely fuck up the site trying to fix something.
NEW YORK (WPIX) – Multiple people are reportedly dead after a helicopter crashed into the Hudson River off Manhattan on Thursday.

Sources told Nexstar’s WPIX and the Associated Press that six people died in the crash. Two people briefed on the rescue efforts told The New York Times that three children and two adults had been pulled from the water, but their conditions were unknown.

Authorities have not yet provided any information regarding how many people may have been on board or their conditions.

Fire officials confirmed the crash on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River was first reported shortly after 3 p.m. ET on Thursday.

Videos posted to social media show showed the Bell 206 mostly submerged, upside down in the water. Police were seen nearby with police helicopters overhead.

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The fire department said it had units on scene performing rescue operations.

The rescue craft were near a site close to the Manhattan waterfront, near the end of a long maintenance pier for one of the ventilation towers for the Holland Tunnel.

The skies over Manhattan are routinely filled with both planes and helicopters, both private recreational aircraft and commercial and tourist flights. Manhattan has several helipads that whisk business executives and others to destinations throughout the metropolitan area.

Over the years, there have been multiple crashes, including a collision between a plane and a tourist helicopter over the Hudson River in 2009 that killed nine people and the 2018 crash of a charter helicopter offering “open door” flights that went down into the East River, killing five people.

 
Helicopters don't drop like stones unless the rotors have failed. When the engine clutch is disengaged, and at sufficient speed, the rotor blades experience something called 'auto-rotation' where the wind/air turns the rotor as it falls, creating small amounts of lift and dampening the drop.

This looks like catastrophic engine failure, gearbox seizure or the rotors falling off.

Does anyone know if the helicopter was vaxxed, or if it had information about hillary clinton?
 
All the New Yawkahs just walking and not even speeding up or slowing down their pace. Never change, NYC.

Edit: I've watched that footage a few times and ... that chopper has no tail, unless my eyes are going bad (also a possibility). Did it literally break apart in mid-air? Apparently owned by NY Helicopters, which provides charters and tourist flights.

Possible this will be a prominent family (but they're from Spain so it won't be news here). EDIT2: No, they were tourists on the cheapest 15-minute flight. Just normies. Really sad stuff. Tens of thousands of these flights happen without incident every year.
 
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Screenshot from the video. No tail and no rotor. You can actually see the latter on the top left.
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E: Just guessing, the tail was probably the first to go for whatever reason and then the rest of the helicopter spun out so hard the rotor was ripped clean off the body, and the body plunged right into the Hudson. I've no expertise on the subject, but that's my bet.
 
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All the New Yawkahs just walking and not even speeding up or slowing down their pace. Never change, NYC.

Edit: I've watched that footage a few times and ... that chopper has no tail, unless my eyes are going bad (also a possibility). Did it literally break apart in mid-air? Apparently owned by NY Helicopters, which provides charters and tourist flights.

Possible this will be a prominent family (but they're from Spain so it won't be news here). EDIT2: No, they were tourists on the cheapest 15-minute flight. Just normies. Really sad stuff. Tens of thousands of these flights happen without incident every year.
The more I learn about helicopters and helicopter accidents, the less inclined I am to laugh about Sean Bean hiking up a mountain in full costume rather than take a helicopter ride up.
 
All the New Yawkahs just walking and not even speeding up or slowing down their pace. Never change, NYC.

Edit: I've watched that footage a few times and ... that chopper has no tail, unless my eyes are going bad (also a possibility). Did it literally break apart in mid-air? Apparently owned by NY Helicopters, which provides charters and tourist flights.

Possible this will be a prominent family (but they're from Spain so it won't be news here). EDIT2: No, they were tourists on the cheapest 15-minute flight. Just normies. Really sad stuff. Tens of thousands of these flights happen without incident every year.
As was previously mentioned, this was violent. Something went kaboom, I guess mechanically, like a gearbox seizure. In an absence of all other info I'd have guessed a collision first, but we'd probably know already if something else was involved.
 
Here is what I found in the archives. I believe the first 3 transmissions are traffic reports from the helicopter that went down but it is a bit hard to tell. Helicopters on this channel were only reporting what type of helicopter they were and there were multiple longrangers but this one stopped talking after the time it went off radar and its location reports match the accident aircraft. The transmission at 11 seconds reporting that they passed the Lincoln Tunnel is the last one I could find from them, they never reported passing the Holland Tunnel, which is where they crashed.

The helicopter made no reports of issues prior to vanishing and other helicopters on the frequency were only aware when a coast guard helicopter asked if anyone heard reports of a helicopter down 5 minutes after the accident.

Someone from the company asked if anyone knew anything 10 mintues after the crash to which someone reported they saw the helicopter in the water with the floats deployed and thought everyone was Ok. Another helicopter later corrected this and said the floats were deployed but the helicopter was upside down.

Unrelated traffic trimmed, silenced trimmed I chose to cut unrelated traffic because it was very busy and would be 40 minutes long if I left it in.

 

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Now we wait to see if the culprit was the DEI hiring agenda again or something more mundane. Without further backstory, I have no clue what to make of this.
Tourist rentals? I'm going all-in on "Poor maintenance lead to a bearing not being greased, excess heat/friction caused it to grenade."
Dude just sat there watching an entire group of people die on video like it was just a mild inconvenience to his day.
And he should get a fucking medal for it. Holy shit is it annoying when the woman behind the camera is incapable of not shrieking like a banshee.
 
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