New Details Revealed About the Tourist Helicopter That Crashed in N.Y.C. — Including That It Did Not Have a Flight Recorder
New details have been revealed about the tourist helicopter that crashed in New York City earlier this week.
In a news release on Saturday, April 12, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said the aircraft — which went down on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River on April 10, killing all six people onboard, including the pilot — did not have a black box, an electronic recording device used to investigate aviation incidents.
"The helicopter was not equipped with any flight recorders. No onboard video recorders or camera recorders have been recovered, and none of the helicopter avionics onboard recorded information that could be used for the investigation," the NTSB said.
The organization added that "investigators met with representatives from the helicopter's operator, New York Helicopter Charter Inc., to review operational records, policies and procedures, safety management systems and the pilot's experience," and the NTSB "also examined two exemplar helicopters."
The helicopter involved in the incident, according to the NTSB, had already completed seven tour flights on April 10. During the eight flight of the day is when the aircraft, which had a last major inspection on March 1, crashed.
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Related: Couple Next in Line After Family of 5 Dies in Hudson River Helicopter Crash Speaks Out
The fatal helicopter crash occurred around 3:15 p.m. local time, shortly after the aircraft took off from downtown N.Y.C. Onboard was pilot Sean Johnson and a family of five — father Agustín Escobar, the chief executive of Siemens' rail infrastructure division in Spain, his wife, Merce Camprubi Montal, and their three young children.
The NTSB said wreckage from the helicopter, a Bell 206 L-4, "continued to be recovered by divers" on April 12. They added that investigators are also "evaluating the helicopter's flight control system at a secure location."
Currently, the organization said "the main fuselage, including the cockpit and cabin, the forward portion of the tail boom, the horizontal stabilizer finlets and the vertical fin have been recovered." Some of these parts, per the NTSB, will go to their Washington, D.C., laboratories "for closer inspection."
The transportation group added that New York Police Department (NYPD) divers will continue their recovery operations on Sunday, April 13, hoping to find "the helicopter's main rotor, main gear box, tail rotor and a large portion of the tail boom." The NTSB also said that "side-scanning sonar is being used to identify potential locations of wreckage."
The NTSB's investigation, which is being orchestrated alongside the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), remains ongoing.
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