Helicopter crashes into New York’s East river

At least one dead after a Bell 206 helicopter crashed into the river after taking off from a launch pad on the riverbank At least one passenger has died after a helicopter which was believed to be carrying a group of British tourists crashed into New York’s East River after taking off from a launch pad on the riverbank. Three of the tourists and the pilot were taken to hospital after they were pulled out of the river, according to the authorities, who said that two of the injured, both women, were in a critical condition. Police and fire department divers pulled victims of the crash out of the Bell 407 after it was submerged in murky waters near 34th Street in midtown Manhattan. Detective Martin Speechley of the New York Police Department told Sky News that the recovery operation would have “been done by touch” because that part of the river was so murky. Dan Sweeney, manager at the nearby Water Club restaurant, told the NBC New York news outlet that the helicopter appeared to be in the process of landing when it crashed. “It went down pretty fast, you could see the splash, you could see the top of it and it just disappeared,” he said. “It looked like it was trying to land at the heliport and missed the landing.” Joy Garnett and her husband were on the dock waiting to take the East River ferry to Brooklyn when they heard the blades of a helicopter and saw it start to take off from the nearby helipad. She told the Associated Press that she saw it do “a funny curlicue.” “I thought, ‘Is that some daredevil move?’” she said. “But it was obviously out of control. The body spun around at least two or three times, and then it went down.” She said the chopper had lifted about 25 feet (7.6 meters) off the ground before it dropped into the water without much of a splash. It flipped over, and the blades were sticking up out of the river. She said people on the dock started throwing in life jackets and buoys. Two people came up out of the waves. “It didn’t make much noise,” she said. “It was just a splash and sunk.” The weather was clear but a little windy at the time of the incident, with winds gusting up to 20 mph (32 kph) and visibility of 10 miles (16 kilometers), according to the weather station at LaGuardia airport. There were a few clouds at 3,500 feet (1,066 meters) above sea level, well above the typical flying altitude for helicopters. Carlos Acevedo, of Puerto Rico, was with his wife at a nearby park area when they saw the helicopter go down. “It sank fast,” he said. “In seconds. Like the water was sucking it in.” Lau Kamg was leaving a dentist’s office and was walking nearby when he saw the chopper go down, and he said it appeared to be in distress. “The sound got my attention,” he said. I saw it splash.” In August 2009, a small plane collided with a helicopter over the Hudson River, on the other side of Manhattan, killing nine people, including five Italian tourists. A government safety panel found that an air traffic controller who was on a personal phone call had contributed to the accident. The Federal Aviation Administration changed its rules for aircraft flying over New York City’s rivers after that collision. Pilots must call out their positions on the radio and obey a 161 mph speed limit. Before the changes, such radio calls were optional. Earlier that year, an Airbus 320 airliner landed in the Hudson after hitting birds and losing both engines shortly after taking off from LaGuardia Airport. The flight, US Airways Flight 1549, became known as the Miracle on the Hudson plane. The river has been closed to commercial boating traffic, the US Coast Guard said. United States New York Ben Quinn guardian.co.uk

Posted by on October 4, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.