Divers using sonar searched Friday for key pieces of a sightseeing helicopter that broke apart in midair and plunged into the Hudson River between Manhattan and New Jersey.
All six people aboard were killed — a family of five from Spain and the pilot, a 36-year-old U.S. Navy veteran who spent much of his military career in San Diego.
The main and rear rotors, main transmission, roof structure and tail structure were still missing a day after Thursday’s crash, National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said.
The helicopter crashed around 3:15 p.m., about 15 minutes after departing from a lower Manhattan heliport. It flew up the west side of Manhattan, turned around near the George Washington Bridge and was heading south when it plummeted upside down into a shallow stretch of the river near Jersey City, New Jersey.
Witnesses said they saw the main rotor detach and spin away, and bystander video showed parts of the aircraft tumbling through the air.
Homendy said investigators had only just begun looking at the wreckage, flight logs and other material and would not speculate on the cause. The agency, which has been spared from the Trump administration’s job-cutting measures, deployed 17 people to the crash scene, including 10 investigators.
Navy vet served on carrier, with Special Warfare
The pilot, Seankese Johnson, transitioned to aviation after a career in the Navy, several years of it in San Diego.
He received his commercial pilot’s license in 2023, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, and had logged about 800 hours of flight time as of March, Homendy said.
Recently, he posted a photo on Facebook of him piloting a helicopter with Manhattan in the background. In 2023, he posted that he was flying a firefighting helicopter.
“Long hours and painstaking work to get to this moment. Thank you for all the love and support from those who’ve helped me get here,” Johnson wrote.
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He enlisted in 2006 and served until 2018, achieving the rank of Gunner’s Mate 2nd Class, Defense Department records show. He was stationed on the USS Ronald Reagan from 2007 to 2011, when the carrier’s home port was in Coronado, and in San Diego from 2011 to 2018, serving in the Special Warfare Unit, the Special Warfare Logistics Support Unit and the Coastal Riverine Squadron.
Just before takeoff, his passengers, Agustin Escobar and wife, Mercè Camprubí Montal and their three children — Victor, 4, Mercedes, 8, and Agustin, 10 — smiled in front of the helicopter in souvenir photos posted to the tour operator’s website.
Escobar, a 49-year-old executive with the German conglomerate Siemens, who had extended a business trip to the U.S. to sightsee in New York City and celebrate two family milestones. Mercedes’ 9th birthday would have been Friday, and his wife was about to turn 40.
Helicopter had prior issue
The helicopter, a Bell 206 LongRanger IV, was built in 2004.
According to FAA records, it had a maintenance issue last September involving its transmission assembly.
An entry in the agency’s Service Difficulty Reporting System shows the transmission assembly had metal in oil, a sign of wear, and a bearing in the transmission was found to be flaking.
The helicopter had logged 12,728 total flight hours at the time, according to the records.
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