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The corporate that operated the helicopter that crashed into New York Metropolis’s Hudson River on Thursday – killing all six folks on board – has been shuttered with fast impact, the US’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) mentioned late Sunday.
New York Helicopter Excursions is “shutting down their operations instantly”, the FAA mentioned in an announcement on X. The company added that it could launch a assessment of the corporate’s license and security data within the meantime.
The tour operator was already the topic of an investigation from the Nationwide Transportation Security Board, which mentioned that the doomed helicopter – a Bell 206L-4 LongRanger IV – was not geared up with any flight knowledge recording gear.
It was on its eighth tour flight of the day when it crashed into the river close to Hoboken, New Jersey, after taking off from Manhattan for an aerial tour of New York Metropolis.
These killed within the crash had been the pilot and his passengers: a household of 5 visiting from Spain.
The relations included Siemens government Agustín Escobar, 49, and his spouse, Mercè Camprubí Montal, who was celebrating her fortieth birthday on the time of the helicopter crash. The couple had been joined by their three kids: Victor, 4; Mercedes, 8; and Agustín, 10.
The pilot, 36-year-old Seankese Johnson, was a US navy veteran who certified as a business pilot in 2023 with greater than 800 hours’ flying time.
Information of the corporate’s closure got here after US senator Chuck Schumer of New York urged the FAA to rescind New York Helicopter Excursions’ working certificates. The senator additionally known as for the corporate’s operators to “stop their flights till the investigation is full”.
“There’s one factor for certain about New York Metropolis’s helicopter tour firms: They’ve a lethal monitor report,” Schumer at a Sunday information convention.
He added: “Eleven folks killed in the previous few years, and it’s normally the businesses, not the pilots, which are overtly manipulating FAA guidelines, reducing corners and will effectively be placing income over folks.”
The corporate’s web site was nonetheless on-line on Monday with a message to say it’s “profoundly saddened by the tragic accident and lack of life that occurred on April 10, 2025, involving one in every of our helicopters within the Hudson River”.
The crash has drawn consideration to the protection of civilian helicopter flights round Manhattan. The New York Metropolis mayor, Eric Adams has dismissed dialogue of a blanket ban on helicopter excursions within the metropolis.
“That’s a part of the attraction of companies being within the metropolis, folks coming to town, seeing town from the air,” Adams instructed NBC after the crash. “What we should do is make certain it’s protected, make certain it’s performed accurately.”
However on the opposite aspect of the Hudson River, in New Jersey, opposition to air tourism is mounting, together with from the mayor of Jersey Metropolis, which is simply throughout the Hudson River from New York Metropolis.
“I believe any cheap particular person would come to the conclusion that the quantity of air site visitors over New York Metropolis and New Jersey – significantly Jersey Metropolis – is problematic,” Jersey Metropolis mayor Steve Fulop instructed the Gothamist. “It’s only a matter of time earlier than any individual else will get harm.”
The Japanese Area Helicopter Council, an air tourism trade group, instructed the AP that New York Metropolis’s sightseeing excursions “already function beneath probably the most stringent of laws”.
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