{"id":139466,"date":"2026-07-16T13:35:01","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T19:35:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/an-nyc-helicopter-that-crashed-and-killed-6-last-year-shows-signs-of-bird-strike-ntsb-says\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T13:36:28","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T19:36:28","slug":"an-nyc-helicopter-that-crashed-and-killed-6-last-year-shows-signs-of-bird-strike-ntsb-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/an-nyc-helicopter-that-crashed-and-killed-6-last-year-shows-signs-of-bird-strike-ntsb-says\/","title":{"rendered":"An NYC helicopter that crashed and killed 6 last year shows signs of bird strike, safety board says"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"FILE
FILE – Emergency personnel respond to a helicopter crash on the Hudson River, April 10, 2025, in Jersey City, N.J. (AP Photo\/Seth Wenig, File)<\/span>(AP Photo\/Seth Wenig, File)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bird remains found on the wreckage of a sightseeing helicopter that crashed into the Hudson River last year in New York City and killed 6 people<\/a> suggest that it struck several geese, investigators said Thursday.<\/p>\n

The National Transportation Safety Board reports released Thursday describe the evidence and witness reports that support there having been a bird strike before the helicopter plummeted into the river on April 10, 2025. The reports were not final, so don’t identify a definitive cause of the crash.<\/p>\n

The Federal Aviation Administration has said that helicopters are especially vulnerable to bird strikes because they fly at low altitudes. Helicopter bird strikes are unusual, but they can be devastating.<\/p>\n

The victims of last year\u2019s accident included a Siemens business executive from Spain, his family<\/a> and the pilot. Passengers Agustin Escobar, 49; his wife, Merc\u00e8 Camprub\u00ed Montal, 39; and their three children, Victor, 4; Mercedes, 8; and Agustin, 10, all died. The pilot was Seankese Johnson, 36, a U.S. Navy veteran who received his commercial pilot\u2019s license in 2023. The crash renewed safety concerns<\/a> about the popular sightseeing flights and prompted New Jersey\u2019s governor to ask<\/a> for additional restrictions on nonessential helicopter flights.<\/p>\n

Remains of several geese were found on the helicopter\u2019s rotors and left horizontal stabilizer. One witness told the NTSB that just minutes before the crash a large flock of geese took flight in the area.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe geese were big and there were many of them. When the helicopter went bang, I immediately thought it was a bird strike,\u201d the witness told NTSB investigators.<\/p>\n

The Smithsonian Institution\u2019s Feather Identification Lab identified remains from different breeds of geese on the wreckage. Some of those birds average about three pounds. The remains also include female Canada Geese, which can average nearly eight pounds.<\/p>\n

The NTSB has investigated 24 helicopter bird strike crashes in the past 25 years, including three fatal ones. Helicopter pilots are encouraged to try to avoid areas where birds are known to be present and fly slower to minimize the potential damage from an impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cBird strikes continue to be a hazard in aviation and one that can be difficult to mitigate,\u201d said aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti, who used to investigate crashes for both the NTSB and Federal Aviation Administration.<\/p>\n

The \u201c miracle on the Hudson\u201d<\/a> highlighted the danger of bird strikes when a US Airways jet hit a flock of birds and lost power in both engines shortly after takeoff in 2009. Pilot Chesley \u201cSully\u201d Sullenberger was hailed as a hero after he landed the powerless plane in the Hudson River and all 155 people on board were rescued.<\/p>\n

In last year\u2019s crash, witnesses described seeing the helicopter\u2019s tail and main rotor breaking away and smoke pouring from the spinning chopper before it slammed into the water.<\/p>\n

The helicopter took off from a downtown heliport that afternoon and flew north along the Manhattan skyline before heading south toward the Statue of Liberty. Less than 18 minutes into the flight, parts of the aircraft were seen tumbling into the water.<\/p>\n

Rescue boats circled the submerged aircraft within minutes of impact and recovered the bodies from the water. Later recovery crews hoisted the mangled Bell 206L-4 helicopter out of the river for investigators to examine.<\/p>\n

New York Helicopter Tours shut down after the crash, and the FAA issued an emergency order to ground all the company\u2019s flights after learning it had fired its operations director minutes after he had agreed to suspend flights during the investigation.<\/p>\n

The FAA said at the time that it suspected the firing was retaliation for a safety decision.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s director of operations, Jason Costello, agreed to voluntarily halt flights while the crash was being investigated. But 16 minutes after Costello sent an email to the FAA, the company\u2019s chief executive officer sent a separate email to the agency saying he did not authorize the halt and that Costello was no longer an employee.<\/p>\n

\"FILE
FILE – In this image released by the National Transportation Safety Board, an NTSB team surveys the wreckage Recovered from the helicopter that crashed into Hudson River, April 11, 2025, in Jersey City, N.J. (NTSB via AP, File)<\/span>(NTSB via AP, File)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FILE – Emergency personnel respond to a helicopter crash on the Hudson River, April 10, 2025, in Jersey City, N.J. (AP Photo\/Seth Wenig, File)(AP Photo\/Seth Wenig, File) Bird remains found on the wreckage of a sightseeing helicopter that crashed into the Hudson River last year in New York City and killed 6 people suggest that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":139467,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5734],"tags":[],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-139466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-associated-press"],"acf":[],"author_name":"Website Administrator","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139466"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":139474,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139466\/revisions\/139474"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139466"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=139466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}