An investigation is underway into the helicopter crash that killed six people — the pilot and a family of Spanish tourists — when the craft plunged into the Hudson River in New York City on Thursday.
Recovery crews began lifting wreckage from the river overnight.
Emergency personnel work at the scene of a helicopter crash on the Hudson River near lower Manhattan in New York, as seen from Newport, New Jersey, on April 10, 2025.
Eduardo Munoz/Reuters
Siemens executive Agustin Escobar, his wife, Merce Camprubi Montal, and their children — ages 4, 8 and 10 — have been identified as victims in the crash.
They were killed one day before the 8-year-old’s birthday, according to New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
Also killed was the pilot, aged 36, law enforcement sources told ABC News. The pilot is yet to be publicly identified.
First responders work to remove the wreckage of a helicopter from the water after crashing into the Hudson River, in the Newport neighborhood of Jersey City, New Jersey, on April 10, 2025.
Leonardo Munoz/AFP via Getty Images
The chopper — which was operated by the New York Helicopter Tours company — fell into the Hudson River between Lower Manhattan and Hoboken, New Jersey, on Thursday afternoon, just over 15 minutes after it departed from the Wall Street Heliport.
“We are devastated,” a representative of company told ABC News. “My staff hasn’t stopped crying.”
The chopper — identified by the Federal Aviation Administration as a Bell 206 helicopter — was on its sixth flight of the day. It was found upside-down in the 50-degree water when rescuers arrived at the scene, which was closer to the New Jersey side of the Hudson River, according to sources.
In this screen grab from a video, a helicopter crashed into the Hudson River on April 10, 2025, in New York.
AvirbhawRakesh via X
Video from the crash showed the chopper plunging into the water without a tail rotor or a main rotor blade. Officials said it hit the water inverted.
New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch told reporters four victims were pronounced dead at the scene. Two others later succumbed to their injuries, she said.
Emergency personnel work at the scene of a helicopter crash on the Hudson River near lower Manhattan in New York, as seen from Newport, New Jersey, on April 10, 2025.
Eduardo Munoz/Reuters
Jersey City Medical Center, where the passengers were transported after the crash, tried as hard as they could to save the injured, Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop told ABC News.
Fulop said the city has had concerns about the air traffic over the Hudson before and is hoping this brings more attention to their safety concerns.
President Donald Trump called the crash “terrible” on social media and said the footage of the accident is “horrendous.”
Crews work to remove a crashed helicopter from the Hudson River on April 10, 2025 in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said in a post to X that the news was an “unimaginable tragedy.”
Dani Horbiak told ABC News she watched the helicopter “fall out of the sky” from her apartment window.
“I heard five or six loud noises that sounded almost like gunshots in the sky and saw pieces fall off, then watched it fall into the river,” she said.
“It sounded like a sonic boom,” another witness told New York ABC station WABC. He said he saw the “helicopter splitting in two with the rotor flying off.”
“I was walking by and the helicopter went down at a 45-degree angle,” Eric Campoverde told ABC News.
ABC News’ Leah Sarnoff and Erin Murtha contributed to this report.
