Helicopter 'suddenly' broke apart before plunging into Hudson River, NTSB says
The single-engine Bell 206 helicopter, operated by New York Helicopter Tours, departed on April 10 at about 2:58 p.m. from a downtown Manhattan helicopter pad and later flew north over the Hudson River before crashing about 17 minutes later, according to the NTSB report released on May 7. A family of five from Spain, along with a pilot, were all killed in the incident, authorities said.
Surveillance footage and audio captured the helicopter traveling south before it "suddenly separated into three major sections," the NTSB said in the report. The sections were recovered in the wreckage and identified: the fuselage with the engine; the main rotor system with both rotor blades; transmission and roof-beam structure; and the tail boom with the tail rotor.
"Several witnesses described hearing several loud 'bangs' emanating from the helicopter before it broke up and descended into the river," according to the report.
Debris from the helicopter was discovered submerged in several areas in the river and on the surface of the river, the NTSB said in the report. Debris was also recovered from a rooftop near the Hoboken Terminal, a major transportation hub in New Jersey.
The crash drew worldwide headlines and renewed scrutiny over the controversial helicopter tourism industry in New York. The incident remains under investigation by the NTSB and Federal Aviation Administration.
The NTSB's preliminary report did not conclude what may have caused the crash. It typically takes about a year or more before the NTSB determines a probable cause and a final report is released.
High above the city, low on oversight: Are helicopter tours putting lives at risk?
The family from Spain, which included an executive at tech company Siemens, his wife, and three children, was on an aerial sightseeing tour with New York Helicopter Tours, authorities said.
During the flight, the helicopter "flew a teardrop pattern" south of the Statue of Liberty and traveled north along the east side of the Hudson River, according to the report. The aircraft then flew past the George Washington Bridge before it made a U-turn and went south along the New Jersey side of the river.
As the helicopter approached the Holland Tunnel's ventilation towers near Jersey City, New Jersey, it was flying at an altitude between 625 to 650 feet, the NTSB said in the report. The Holland Tunnel is a vehicular tunnel under the Hudson River that connects Lower Manhattan in New York City to Jersey City.
The helicopter's altitude then increased 675 feet before it rapidly descended and hit the water, according to the report.
Crews and investigators spent days recovering the wreckage. The NTSB said in the report that the helicopter was not equipped with video or data recording devices.
"Photos of the pilot taken just before the helicopter departed indicated that he was wearing computer-augmented sunglasses, which had video and audio recording capability," according to the report. "The sunglasses were not recovered."
The helicopter airframe had accrued 12,975 total hours of operation, and the engine had accrued a total of 23,305 hours of operation, the NTSB said in the report. The helicopter's most recent inspection was conducted in late February, and it had operated about 50 hours since then.
The pilot worked a 10-day on, 10-day off schedule, and the crash occurred during his first day back at work, according to the report. The flight was his eighth tour excursion of the day on the same helicopter.
Flying feels riskier. Here's what the experts say about that high number of accidents.
The incident renewed safety concerns over the commercial helicopter industry, and aviation experts have long called for stricter regulations to improve the safety of these flights. Helicopter tours in New York have been controversial, and some flights have turned deadly, USA TODAY reported.
The United States operates the world's largest fleet of commercial helicopters and is home to the biggest market for helicopter tourism in destinations like New York City, Hawaii, and the Grand Canyon. According to the FAA, helicopters have a fatal accident rate of 0.63 per 100,000 flight hours for helicopters, which is lower than the general aviation average but higher than commercial airline rates.
Following the crash, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer urged the FAA to revoke New York Helicopter Tours' operating certificate immediately. Schumer also called on the FAA to increase regulations for helicopter tours, including expanding ramp inspections — surprise safety inspections — at helicopter tour companies across New York City.
On April 14, the FAA issued an emergency order grounding the helicopter tour company. The order came a day after the agency had announced that the company was shutting down its operations.
Contributing: Kathleen Wong and Zach Wichter, USA TODAY; Reuters
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fatal NYC helicopter crash: Aircraft broke apart before plummeting
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CNN
6 days ago
- CNN
Turbulence is becoming more frequent and more severe. Here are the planet's bumpiest flight routes
When the plane started shaking violently on a Delta flight from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam last week, some passengers thought it was going to crash. The jet had hit severe turbulence, flinging people into the ceiling, and service carts across the cabin. One passenger said it felt like an earthquake. The plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Minneapolis, where 25 people were taken to the hospital. It was just the latest in a series of recent turbulence incidents resulting in injuries, hospitalizations and even a death. A 73-year-old man died of a heart attack during severe turbulence on a flight from London to Singapore last year. Turbulence, caused by disturbances in the atmosphere, is one of the most unpredictable weather phenomena for pilots. Air flows like water gushing down a river: undisturbed it runs smoothly, but if it encounters an obstacle, like a boulder, it becomes turbulent. Mountains and storms act like boulders in a river, altering the way air moves. Moderate to extreme turbulence happens tens of thousands of times a year across the world. For most passengers it will be felt as a few bumps, but in severe cases it can cause structural damage to the plane, temporary loss of control and injuries. Turbulence caused more than 200 serious injuries in the US alone between 2009 and 2024, according to data from the US National Transportation Safety Board. The good news is fatalities are very rare, and wearing a seatbelt almost always prevents serious injury. The bad news: Turbulence appears to be increasing, especially on some of the most heavily trafficked routes, and it's set to get worse as the planet heats up. So where can passengers expect the bumpiest trips? Turbulence forecasting website Turbli has analyzed more than 10,000 flight paths, using data from sources including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the UK Met Office, to rank the planet's most turbulent routes. The goal is 'to show people that even if turbulence is chaotic, it does follow some patterns,' said Ignacio Gallego Marcos, Turbli's founder and an expert in computational fluid dynamics. The 120-mile route between Mendoza in Argentina and Santiago, Chile, offers breathtaking views over the towering, sometimes snow-capped peaks of the Andes mountains. It's also the most turbulent route in the world, according to Turbli data. Mountain ranges are large, immovable obstacles that alter air flow. They can create waves of air able to travel hundreds of miles. When these waves break, they cause a lot of turbulence, like ocean waves breaking into churning white foam, said Gallego Marcos. The majority of the 10 most turbulent routes in the world involve mountains, including the Andes, the longest land-based mountain chain on Earth, and the Himalayas. In the United States, the bumpiest routes are dominated by flights crisscrossing the Rocky Mountains to and from Denver and Salt Lake City. It's the same story in Europe, where many of the most turbulent routes are over the Alps, as planes zip between France, Italy and Switzerland, according to Turbli. Pilots are very aware of the need to take extra care over mountains, but the turbulence they cause is not always predictable. It 'can be due to very small-scale features of the mountain' not always picked up in forecasts, Gallego Marcos said. Mountains are always there, but another form of turbulence can seemingly appear from nowhere, with no obvious visual cues to warn pilots. It's called clear-air turbulence and is most often used to describe turbulence near jet streams, wavy rivers of fast-moving air high in the atmosphere where planes cruise. It's caused by 'wind shear,' a rapid change of wind speed or direction with altitude. This type of turbulence is 'hazardous because it's hard to detect and forecast,' said Piers Buchanan, aviation applications science manager at the UK Met Office. The 320-mile route between the Japanese cities of Natori and Tokoname is one of the most turbulent in Asia because of this phenomenon, Gallego Marcos said. Japan has a 'particularly strong jet stream,' he said, as the Americans discovered during World War II when bombs they dropped on Japan were swept off target by strong winds. Jet stream strength is driven by temperature difference. In Japan, frigid air from Siberia meets warm air from Pacific Ocean currents, fueling a very strong and relatively stable jet stream throughout the year. A similar phenomenon happens on the US East Coast, where warm air from the Gulf Stream meets cold air from Canada. 'The North Atlantic Corridor, especially between North America and Europe, (is) where jet streams are strongest,' Buchanan told CNN. As the planet warms, clear-air turbulence is intensifying, according to recent research. It works like this: Climate change increases temperature differences in the upper atmosphere which makes wind speeds more volatile and results in more clear-air turbulence where planes fly. Severe clear-air turbulence over the North Atlantic — one of the planet's busiest flight routes — was 55% more frequent in 2020 than 1979, according to a 2023 study, which also found increases of 41% over the continental US. And it's set to get worse. Turbulence strong enough to cause injury is projected to double or even triple in frequency globally by the end of the century, according to a 2017 study. Thunderstorms and towering cumulus clouds are another key source of turbulence, which is particularly pronounced near the equator. 'It's driven by strong vertical air movement and can be sudden and severe,' Buchanan said. This type of turbulence does not feature in Turbli's rankings because pilots tend to avoid it. Planes are constantly scanning for storms using onboard radar and ground-based equipment. 'Your pilot will be kind of zigzagging around thunderstorm clouds,' Gallego Marcos said. There are still perils, however. Forecasts are not always precise enough catch thunderstorm turbulence and storms can also generate outbursts that can't really be predicted or seen by the radar, said Gallego Marcos. A particular danger is when several storms form at the same time and pilots risk getting caught between huge thunderstorm clouds. Aviation experts believe this may have happened to the London-to-Singapore flight last year, when it encountered storms over Myanmar. Scientists are exploring whether climate change may also be increasing this kind of turbulence as a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, which fuels more intense thunderstorms. The relationship between expected climate changes and turbulence 'is a very active area of investigation,' said Robert Sharman, senior scientist emeritus at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. It's hard to pin down firm data, he told CNN. Experts stress flying is still the safest form of transport. Planes are specifically designed to withstand even severe turbulence and buckling your seatbelt is the surest way to avoid injury, Gallego Marcos said. Our understanding of the phenomenon is also getting better. We can now accurately forecast about 75% of turbulence, said Joana Medeiros, a meteorology researcher at Reading University. What does seem clear is that as human-driven global warming unleashes invisible changes on our atmosphere, and the aviation industry — a climate polluter in its own right — keeps booming, some of the planet's busiest routes are set to become a lot bumpier.
CNN
6 days ago
- CNN
Turbulence is becoming more frequent and more severe. Here are the planet's bumpiest flight routes
When the plane started shaking violently on a Delta flight from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam last week, some passengers thought it was going to crash. The jet had hit severe turbulence, flinging people into the ceiling, and service carts across the cabin. One passenger said it felt like an earthquake. The plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Minneapolis, where 25 people were taken to the hospital. It was just the latest in a series of recent turbulence incidents resulting in injuries, hospitalizations and even a death. A 73-year-old man died of a heart attack during severe turbulence on a flight from London to Singapore last year. Turbulence, caused by disturbances in the atmosphere, is one of the most unpredictable weather phenomena for pilots. Air flows like water gushing down a river: undisturbed it runs smoothly, but if it encounters an obstacle, like a boulder, it becomes turbulent. Mountains and storms act like boulders in a river, altering the way air moves. Moderate to extreme turbulence happens tens of thousands of times a year across the world. For most passengers it will be felt as a few bumps, but in severe cases it can cause structural damage to the plane, temporary loss of control and injuries. Turbulence caused more than 200 serious injuries in the US alone between 2009 and 2024, according to data from the US National Transportation Safety Board. The good news is fatalities are very rare, and wearing a seatbelt almost always prevents serious injury. The bad news: Turbulence appears to be increasing, especially on some of the most heavily trafficked routes, and it's set to get worse as the planet heats up. So where can passengers expect the bumpiest trips? Turbulence forecasting website Turbli has analyzed more than 10,000 flight paths, using data from sources including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the UK Met Office, to rank the planet's most turbulent routes. The goal is 'to show people that even if turbulence is chaotic, it does follow some patterns,' said Ignacio Gallego Marcos, Turbli's founder and an expert in computational fluid dynamics. The 120-mile route between Mendoza in Argentina and Santiago, Chile, offers breathtaking views over the towering, sometimes snow-capped peaks of the Andes mountains. It's also the most turbulent route in the world, according to Turbli data. Mountain ranges are large, immovable obstacles that alter air flow. They can create waves of air able to travel hundreds of miles. When these waves break, they cause a lot of turbulence, like ocean waves breaking into churning white foam, said Gallego Marcos. The majority of the 10 most turbulent routes in the world involve mountains, including the Andes, the longest land-based mountain chain on Earth, and the Himalayas. In the United States, the bumpiest routes are dominated by flights crisscrossing the Rocky Mountains to and from Denver and Salt Lake City. It's the same story in Europe, where many of the most turbulent routes are over the Alps, as planes zip between France, Italy and Switzerland, according to Turbli. Pilots are very aware of the need to take extra care over mountains, but the turbulence they cause is not always predictable. It 'can be due to very small-scale features of the mountain' not always picked up in forecasts, Gallego Marcos said. Mountains are always there, but another form of turbulence can seemingly appear from nowhere, with no obvious visual cues to warn pilots. It's called clear-air turbulence and is most often used to describe turbulence near jet streams, wavy rivers of fast-moving air high in the atmosphere where planes cruise. It's caused by 'wind shear,' a rapid change of wind speed or direction with altitude. This type of turbulence is 'hazardous because it's hard to detect and forecast,' said Piers Buchanan, aviation applications science manager at the UK Met Office. The 320-mile route between the Japanese cities of Natori and Tokoname is one of the most turbulent in Asia because of this phenomenon, Gallego Marcos said. Japan has a 'particularly strong jet stream,' he said, as the Americans discovered during World War II when bombs they dropped on Japan were swept off target by strong winds. Jet stream strength is driven by temperature difference. In Japan, frigid air from Siberia meets warm air from Pacific Ocean currents, fueling a very strong and relatively stable jet stream throughout the year. A similar phenomenon happens on the US East Coast, where warm air from the Gulf Stream meets cold air from Canada. 'The North Atlantic Corridor, especially between North America and Europe, (is) where jet streams are strongest,' Buchanan told CNN. As the planet warms, clear-air turbulence is intensifying, according to recent research. It works like this: Climate change increases temperature differences in the upper atmosphere which makes wind speeds more volatile and results in more clear-air turbulence where planes fly. Severe clear-air turbulence over the North Atlantic — one of the planet's busiest flight routes — was 55% more frequent in 2020 than 1979, according to a 2023 study, which also found increases of 41% over the continental US. And it's set to get worse. Turbulence strong enough to cause injury is projected to double or even triple in frequency globally by the end of the century, according to a 2017 study. Thunderstorms and towering cumulus clouds are another key source of turbulence, which is particularly pronounced near the equator. 'It's driven by strong vertical air movement and can be sudden and severe,' Buchanan said. This type of turbulence does not feature in Turbli's rankings because pilots tend to avoid it. Planes are constantly scanning for storms using onboard radar and ground-based equipment. 'Your pilot will be kind of zigzagging around thunderstorm clouds,' Gallego Marcos said. There are still perils, however. Forecasts are not always precise enough catch thunderstorm turbulence and storms can also generate outbursts that can't really be predicted or seen by the radar, said Gallego Marcos. A particular danger is when several storms form at the same time and pilots risk getting caught between huge thunderstorm clouds. Aviation experts believe this may have happened to the London-to-Singapore flight last year, when it encountered storms over Myanmar. Scientists are exploring whether climate change may also be increasing this kind of turbulence as a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, which fuels more intense thunderstorms. The relationship between expected climate changes and turbulence 'is a very active area of investigation,' said Robert Sharman, senior scientist emeritus at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. It's hard to pin down firm data, he told CNN. Experts stress flying is still the safest form of transport. Planes are specifically designed to withstand even severe turbulence and buckling your seatbelt is the surest way to avoid injury, Gallego Marcos said. Our understanding of the phenomenon is also getting better. We can now accurately forecast about 75% of turbulence, said Joana Medeiros, a meteorology researcher at Reading University. What does seem clear is that as human-driven global warming unleashes invisible changes on our atmosphere, and the aviation industry — a climate polluter in its own right — keeps booming, some of the planet's busiest routes are set to become a lot bumpier.
Washington Post
31-07-2025
- Washington Post
‘Significant' turbulence sends 25 people to the hospital, Delta says
Twenty-five people were taken to hospitals Wednesday night after an Amsterdam-bound Delta flight from Salt Lake City hit 'significant' turbulence and diverted to Minneapolis. It wasn't clear Thursday morning how serious the injuries were. Delta did not answer questions about whether the injured passengers were wearing seat belts when the Airbus A330 encountered rough air over Wyoming or what was happening on the plane at the time. At noon Thursday, the airline said in a statement that the seven crew members who had been taken to hospitals had been treated and released by the morning. 'All customers who were evaluated at the hospital and willing to share their status with Delta have also been released,' the statement said. The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating; an FAA statement says the Delta crew reported 'severe turbulence.' Delta said it was also cooperating with an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board. Flight 56 took off from Salt Lake City at about 4:45 p.m. local time, according to flight-tracking site FlightRadar24. Less than an hour later, after reaching an altitude of 37,000 feet, the plane ran into turbulence. According to analysis from the site, it reached a maximum altitude of about 38,000 before dropping to an altitude as low as 35,775 feet over about the next minute and a half. The plane landed safely at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport roughly two hours after it took off. The airport's fire department and paramedics responded to the gate 'to provide initial medical attention to passengers in need,' Metropolitan Airports Commission spokesman Jeff Lea said in an email. Delta said it would operate a dedicated flight from Minneapolis to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol on Thursday night so travelers could continue their trip. The plane was carrying 13 crew members and 275 passengers. The FAA does not track general reports of turbulence, but it does compile information on some injuries. Last year, 23 people — most of them crew members — suffered serious injuries due to turbulence, the highest number of any year provided in the data. Grace Moon contributed to this report.
