Hudson helicopter crash: three adults and three children confirmed dead in New York accident – as it happened (2025)

We’re now closing this blog. You can read our full report on the tragedy on the Hudson here:

A few more pictures from the crash site have dropped on the picture wires:

At least 38 people have died in helicopter accidents in New York City since 1977, when an accident on a skyscraper landing pad led the city to start putting restrictions on where choppers could land.

In just the past 10 years, there have been four helicopter crashes in the city, not including the tragedy on Thursday:

• In 2021, a helicopter sustained significant damage during a hard landing at a Manhattan helipad. The pilot and a co-pilot were not hurt.

• In 2019, a helicopter used for executive travel hit the roof of a Manhattan skyscraper in restricted airspace. The pilot was killed.

• In a second crash in 2019, a charter helicopter went into the Hudson River and sank while being maneuvered at a heliport. The pilot escaped.

• In 2018, five people drowned when a charter helicopter offering “open door” flights crashes in the East River. The pilot survived.

New Yorkers were jogging and walking along the sidewalk near the Hudson as normal on Thursday evening, overlooking the scene of the crash and with emergency boats still visible across the water on the New Jersey side, blue lights flashing.

Software engineers and friends Mike Jones, 37, and Omar Mohamed, 21, said they were out for a walk during a break and they had heard the news of the crash.

“It seems that helicopters crash a lot. And I’m afraid of heights anyway so helicopters are a no-go for me,” Jones said.

Mohamed said: “There was just another helicopter crash, right?”, recalling the helicopter crash in Washington DC at the end of January, when a military flight collided in midair with a passenger plane coming in to land. All people aboard both flights were killed.

Asked whether he would take a tourist helicopter flight around New York City, he said: “If I were to do something like that, I would spend a lot of time looking for credible companies that have less history of crashing.”

Meanwhile, a young mother who declined to give her name was shepherding her two children on small bicycles and said “probably not” when asked whether she would take a tourist helicopter flight in the city.

The New Jersey senator Cory Booker said he is “heartbroken” about the victims of the helicopter crash in the Hudson River.

“I’m grateful for the swift action by emergency responders,” he posted on X.

Booker added that his office is closely monitoring the situation and has been touch with local and federal authorities.

Several people have been confirmed dead after a helicopter crashed in the Hudson River in New York City.

Our video editors have put together this video report:

The deputy mayor for public safety, Kaz Daughtry, said that four people were declared dead at the scene and two were taken to the hospital, believed to be in New Jersey.

Police personnel from New York rushed to the scene. “We were met by first responders” who tried to revive the victims at the shoreline, he said.

“They told us they did everything they could to try to save those victims,” Daughtry said.

The failure to save them had clearly been traumatic for the personnel, Daughtry said. “You could see the trauma on their faces,” he said.

Mayor Eric Adams had said moments before “our hearts go out to the family of those who were onboard”.

Here’s what we know about the helicopter crash into the Hudson River on Thursday afternoon, which left six people dead.

• All six people aboard the helicopter – the pilot, two additional adults and three children – were killed. Four people were pronounced dead at the scene and two others were taken to the hospital, where they “succumbed to their injuries”.

• The names and ages of the victims are being withheld at this time, pending family notification. Preliminary information suggests that the passengers included a family visiting from Spain.

• The aircraft operated by a firm called New York Helicopters departed at 2.59pm ET and appeared to lose control, hitting the water upside down near Lower Manhattan at around 3.15pm and becoming submerged in the water.

• The helicopter was identified as a Bell 206, a model widely used in commercial and government aviation, including by sightseeing companies, TV news stations and police departments.

In further detail from the authorities, the NYPD commissioner Jessica Tisch said that after the aircraft, operated by a firm called New York Helicopters, took off from the heliport at the southern end of Manhattan, it flew north up the river until it reached the George Washington Bridge.

The landmark bridge, the busiest road bridge in the world, connects uptown Manhattan with New Jersey, about 10 miles (16km) upstream from the New York Harbor.

Tisch said that when it reached the bridge, it turned around and began flying south again. That was when it appeared to fly out of control.

She did not confirm reports of the aircraft starting to disintegrate in the air, saying that all such details are under investigation.

A map showing the helicopter’s flight path before it crashed has been released by news agencies.

Earlier reports said the helicopter was in the air for about 15 minutes before it plummeted into water near the Holland Tunnel.

According to the flight manifest, six people were onboard the helicopter when it crashed, the New York City police commissioner Jessica Tisch said.

The manifest showed one pilot, two adult passengers and three children, she said.

New York police department divers pulled four people from the crash site, and New York City fire department divers recovered an additional two people, she said.

Four victims were pronounced dead on scene, and two more were removed to local hospitals “where both succumbed to their injuries”, she said.