The doomed Hudson River helicopter that crashed and killed six people was missing a crucial piece of equipment, a shocking probe has revealed. The Bell 206 L-4 aircraft – that terrified the world when horrifying footage caught it plunge from the sky on Thursday – was on its eighth flight of the day.
All people on board, including Siemens executive Agustín Escobar, his wife and three children, were tragically killed on the tourist chopper. An investigation into the crash – by the National Transportation Safety Board – shared the aircraft was not equipped with a key piece of equipment.
The doomed chopper was not fitted with flight recorders and officials have not been able to retrieve any audio, video or camera recorders from the crashed aircraft. Despite this concerning update, most of the destroyed chopper has been recovered from the Hudson River – including the cabin and cockpit.
Investigators are also searching for the tour helicopter’s main rotor blades. Officials revealed all of the pieces of retrieved wreckage will be moved to Washington D.C. to be examined as investigations continue.
Despite sharing this major update, on Saturday night, officials are yet to determine the cause of the horror crash. The NTSB also shared the choppers last major examination was on March 1.
Another worrying report discovered the chopper – owned and operated by New York Helicopter – reportedly had an issue with its transmission assembly last September, according to data from the Federal Aviation Administration.
The tour aircraft, built in 2004, had already logged 12,728 hours of flight time when records showed it needed to be repaired. Officials will also be looking into two recent safety airworthiness directives issued by the FAA on Bell 206L helicopters.
One directive was issued in December 2022, which called for inspection and potential replacement of the main roto blades on the model due to “delamination” – where internal layers of the blade separate due to material fatigue, damage or other defects.
The second directive was issued in May 2023 which required eight models to have tail rotor shafts tested and possibly replaced. If an aircrafts tail rotor fails it could result in the uncontrolled spinning of the aircraft.
Following the tragedy, CEO of New York Helicopters, Michael Roth, said: “I’m absolutely devastated. 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.”
Horrified onlookers described seeing the helicopter “split in half” mid-air before going down near Pier 40 in New York City – killing the Spanish family and pilot Seankese Johnson, a 36-year-old US Navy veteran.
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