A Bell LongRanger helicopter yawed right and broke into three pieces before crashing into the Hudson River and killing the pilot and a family of five on a sightseeing birthday trip on April 10. “Surveillance video (with accompanying audio) captured the helicopter traveling south before it suddenly separated into three major sections: fuselage (including the engine), main rotor system (including both main rotor blades, transmission and roof-beam structure), and the tail boom (including the tail rotor),” the NTSB said in a preliminary report (copied below) released Friday.
The report said it was windy during the flight with a 36-knot gust recorded. The pilot had 790.2 hours in helicopters, including 48.6 on type. He was on his first day of a 10-day-on/10-day-off rotation. It was his eighth flight of the day and took the Spanish family from Manhattan for a loop around the Statue of Liberty before heading north over the Hudson to a U-turn at the George Washington bridge before the breakup occurred on the New Jersey side of the river near the Holland Tunnel.
