New York authorities have named two of the adult victims who died in Thursday's fatal helicopter crash as Agustín Escobar and Merce Camprubi Montal, a married couple from Spain.
A spokesperson for City Hall said overnight that they were among the three adults and three children to have died in the accident.
The Spanish Foreign Ministry confirmed that the couple's three children died in the helicopter crash. Mayor Eric Adams said Friday morning on Fox5’s "Good Day New York" that the children were 4, 8 and 10. The Jersey City Mayor’s office told NBC News that the 8-year-old would have been celebrating a birthday on Friday.
The pilot, Sean Johnson, was identified as the third adult victim, a senior New York City official told NBC New York.
In the devastating incident, the chopper appeared to break in midair and crashed upside down into the Hudson River.
The cause of the crash is unknown and is under investigation.
Escobar was a senior executive with the German technology firm Siemens and was the CEO of rail infrastructure at its Siemens Mobility Division. Previously, he was the CEO and president of Siemens Spain, according to a company announcement.
"We are deeply saddened by the tragic helicopter crash in which Agustin Escobar and his family lost their lives. Our heartfelt condolences go out to all their loved ones," Christoph Erhard, head of corporate media relations for Siemens, said in a statement.
Pedro Sanchez, the prime minister of Spain, said in a statement on X, translated by the Spanish Embassy in Washington, that the crash was "an unimaginable tragedy."
Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop said on X Friday morning that the father in the Spanish family was in the U.S. for a business trip before his family flew out to spend a couple of days in New York City.
"They were celebrating the mom’s 40th bday with the tourist helicopter flight yesterday. The kids were all 11yo and younger," he wrote.
Fulop said a brother-in-law of the family is flying in Friday morning and officials are working with the medical examiner to expedite the release of the bodies back to Spain.
The helicopter, one of the tourist flights that take in the sights of Manhattan, took off from the Wall Street heliport at 2:59 p.m. Officials said it lost control after turning at the George Washington Bridge to move along the New Jersey shoreline sometime after 3 p.m.
Video posted to social media showed the helicopters plunging into the river.
Eyewitnesses described seeing the helicopter fall apart as it hit the river.
“It sounded like something was just like breaking,” Bruce Wall, who took video of the crash, told NBC’s Sam Brock. “At that point I’m pretty sure the helicopter hit the water and the blades were just starting to come down. The tail was a couple feet back.”
Michael Roth, the CEO of New York Helicopter Tours, told The Telegraph that the pilot had said he needed fuel before the crash.
“He [the pilot] called in that he was landing and that he needed fuel, and it should have taken him about three minutes to arrive, but 20 minutes later, he didn’t arrive,” Roth told the paper, adding, “We’re all devastated.”
President Donald Trump called the crash "terrible" in a Truth Social Post Thursday night. "God bless the families and friends of the victims," he said.
NBC Aviation analyst Jeff Guzzetti said on NBC's "TODAY" show Friday: "There was some sort of sudden in flight failure that occurred to the point where the pilot didn’t have an opportunity to make a forced landing or a mayday call, so something happened abruptly."
He noted weather doesn't appear to be a factor, although there were some gusts and winds in the area.
"We’re looking at some sort of hardware issue that perhaps could have been prompted by an inappropriate pilot response, which could have been prompted by something like a bird strike. We just don't know yet," he said. Guzzetti noted the incident has the marks of mast bumping — when the rotor hub strikes the main rotor mast — but the wreckage needs to be looked at to be sure.
The National Transportation Safety Board investigation will look into the pilot, the wreckage of the chopper, and whether the passengers had any footage on board, and will determine if there were any birds or strong winds in the area at the time of the crash, Guzzetti said.
