The New York Metropolis helicopter that crashed into the Hudson River had a mechanical challenge months earlier than it broke aside midair and killed all six onboard, together with a household of vacationers visiting from Spain, in line with data.
The ill-fated Bell206L-4 LongRanger IV plane, owned and operated by New York Helicopter, skilled a mechanical challenge with its transmission meeting final September, in line with Federal Aviation Administration knowledge.
Data present the doomed chopper was in-built 2004 and had already logged 12,728 hours of flight time when it was pressured into restore.
An investigation is underway to find out what induced the plane to drop out of the sky and plunge into the river. The probe will comb by way of the pilot’s expertise, the still-incomplete wreckage, and the Large Apple firm that runs the sightseeing excursions.
Investigators will even evaluation the upkeep work that was executed on the doomed plane, together with the completion of two current security airworthiness directives the FAA issued on Bell 206L mannequin helicopters.
The federal company issued the primary directive in December 2022 and known as for the inspection and doable substitute of the fashions’ predominant rotor blades as a result of “delamination” — a difficulty with the inner layers of the blade separating as a result of materials fatigue, harm or different defects.
The issue, if not fastened, may probably trigger the rotor blade to fail.
A second directive, issued in Might 2023, required the testing and doable substitute of tail rotor shafts on eight fashions, together with the one concerned in Thursday’s lethal wreck, in line with the FAA, which issued the alert after a chopper misplaced a tail-rotor drive as a result of a joint failure.
The rotors on the doomed plane are nonetheless lacking, Nationwide Transportation Security Board Chair Jennifer Homendy mentioned Friday. NYPD divers are nonetheless on the hunt for a number of mangled items of the craft.
Chilling footage captured the plane crumbling midair earlier than it plunged into the river, with at the very least one rotor nonetheless spinning as different components of the helicopter splashed down in varied instructions.
The helicopter took off from Manhattan’s Downtown Skyport at roughly 1:50 p.m., with Siemens govt Agustin Escober, his spouse, Mercè Camprubí Montal, and their three younger kids — Augustin, 10, Mercedes, 8, and Victor, 4 — in tow.
The household, who hailed from Barcelona, Spain, had been flown by Sean Johnson, 36, a Navy SEAL veteran who lately moved to the Large Apple for his still-young aviation profession.
The helicopter crashed about 25 minutes into its air tour, Homendy mentioned.
However this isn’t the primary time the tour firm has seen considered one of its plane in the identical murky waters.
A Bell 206 chopper carrying 4 Swedish vacationers crashed landed within the Hudson when the plane misplaced energy in June 2013 – with the pilot and 4 relations miraculously surviving.
New York Helicopter CEO Michael Roth informed the Wall Avenue Journal on the time that the chopper underwent every day routine inspections however had “no clue why” the plane malfunctioned mid-flight.
Now, 12 years later, Roth once more has “no clue” what occurred.
“I’m absolutely devastated,” Roth informed The Put up after the lethal crash.
“The only thing I know by watching a video of the helicopter falling down, that the main rotor blades weren’t on the helicopter. And I haven’t seen anything like that in my 30 years being in business, in the helicopter business,” he continued.
“The only thing I could guess — I got no clue — is that it either had a bird strike or the main rotor blades failed. I have no clue. I don’t know. This is horrific. But you gotta remember something, these are machines and they break.”
The helicopter was issued an airworthiness certificates in 2016 that was legitimate by way of 2029, data present.
With Put up wires
