New report shows how the helicopter break apart in the air before the crash

New York – Federal Officials published pictures of a New York helicopter, who was doomed to fail, when he broke apart in the air last month and killed six people.

The series of still photos from the surveillance camera video shows the fuselage that contains the engine and the rotors and separates from the tail of the helicopter. The rotor blades and the gearbox then step off the cabin that the passengers and the pilots wear.

The pictures were included in the preliminary report on the flight published by the National Transportation Safety Board.

“Several witnesses have described how several loud” pony “come from the helicopter before leaving and went down into the river,” the report says.

Justin Green, an airfare and former Marine helicopter pilot, said the sequence of pictures shows that the helicopter that is heavy and the tail boom fails, which indicates that he was most likely hit the main twist of the aircraft.

“It is clear that some mechanical problems triggered the separation,” he said. “We still don't know the exact problems, just potential causes.”

The initial NTSB report, in which about six pages are carried out, does not deal with the initial cause of “the examination of the aircraft,” he said. This is probably determined by a forensic examination of the wreck itself, including the rotor blades, the engine and the gear.

Record of the Federal Aviation Administration show that the plane, a bell 206L-4, was built in 2004 and last September had a maintenance problem in which its transmission meeting was involved.

The NTSB previously said that the aircraft, which was operated by the Toursirma New York helicopter, was not equipped with video or data recording devices.

On Wednesday, however, it is said that photos that were previously recorded show that the pilot, Sankese Johnson, wore computer-aided sunglasses that had had video and audio recording functions. However, the glasses were not recovered.

Johnson, a 36-year-old former Navy Seal, received his commercial pilot license in 2023 and, according to the NTSB report, had registered 790 hours of flight.

According to Al Yurman, a retired NTSB investigator who found that the report found that he had an escape in a retired NTSB investigator in this type of aircraft, he did not seem to be particularly experienced when he had a Bell 206L-4.

“It is quite sophisticated for this type of work,” said Yurman. “I would prefer to have someone more experienced, but we will know more if the full report comes out.”

The report states that Johnson worked on “10 days on/10 -day plan” and the flight on April 10th was free to his first day after 10 days. The flight was also the eighth day of the day for the pilot and the helicopter.

The plane was on a typical tour that drove out of Wall Street from Wall Street around 3 p.m. and flew north from Manhattan along the skyline before moving south towards the statue of freedom.

Less than 18 minutes after the start of the flight, witnesses saw the tail and the main rotor away and smoked out of the rotating helicopter.

In recent years, the New York helicopter, the travel administration, has become bankrupt and ongoing lawsuits due to suspected debts.

The company explained that it works with the authorities in the investigation. Nobody answered the phone in his office or replied to an e -mail that requested a comment on Wednesday.

The crash was part of a recent call for aircraft disasters and tight calls, in which some people were worried about the safety of flying in the United States.

Five commercial sightseeing helicopters have been triggered in the rivers in Manhattan since 2005

The crash on April 10 killed a prominent family from Barcelona, ​​Spain: Agustín Escobar, 49; Mercè Campubí Montal, 39; And her children Victor, 4, Mercedes, 8, and Agustin, 10.

Officials said Escobar, the global CEO of Rail Infrastructure at Siemens Mobility, was in business in the New York region.

Montal, who worked for Siemens Energy and granddaughter of a former president of the famous Barcelona FC Soccer Club, flew in with her children to meet him.

Mercedes would have become 9 the day after crash.