Off The Record
Heartbreaking Final Photo: Young Girl’s Last Smile Before Helicopter Crash Ends Her Birthday
On the eve of her ninth birthday, a young girl sat proudly in the cockpit of a helicopter, beaming at the camera, eagerly anticipating takeoff and a tour over the famous New York City skyline on Thursday with her parents and younger siblings.
However, disaster struck just 16 minutes later when the helicopter crashed into the Hudson River at 3:15 p.m. yesterday, killing the eight-year-old who had traveled to the Big Apple from Spain with her family.
Her mother, Merce Camprubi Montal, and father, Agustin Escobar, a Siemens executive, perished in the horrific accident, together with her siblings, ages four and ten.
The ages of the youngsters were verified by New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who also noted in a statement that the tragic incident “was a real unfortunate situation.” Our sympathies are with the family members.
Today would have been her ninth birthday, and the family was celebrating by taking a vacation to New York.
As a gift for the young girl and her mother Merce, who officials said was also celebrating her birthday, the family of five, who had recently arrived from Barcelona, started their first day of seeing the Big Apple with a magnificent helicopter ride.
“The family flew out to extend the trip a couple days in NYC,” stated Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop in response to the tragedy. Yesterday, they used the tourist helicopter flight to celebrate the mother’s 40th birthday.
It was unclear if Fulop was referring to the entire vacation as a birthday trip for Merce or if the unfortunate day was also the small girl’s mother’s birthday.
As horrifying new footage seems to reveal the tragedy’s source, the awful twist revealed.
Aviation specialists suggest that the main rotor blades probably parted from the airplane and chopped the tail, which is why a rotor blade was observed falling into the ocean.
“From the footage, it appears that the main rotor struck the body of the helicopter, cutting off the tail of the helicopter, which created an unrecoverable event,” former military aviator and attorney Jim Brauchle of Motley Rice LLC told DailyMail.com.
“The two main causes of this phenomenon are mechanical failure or excessive maneuvering. Still, a full investigation is needed to understand why this tragedy occurred.”
“Having previously represented the families of tourists killed during a helicopter tour over the Hudson River, my heart goes out to the families at this catastrophic time.”
Another expert told Fox 5 that the flight would not have been recoverable if the separating rotor blades had cut off the aircraft’s tail boom.
“If that articulating head actually separated from the aircraft, the aircraft was doomed. There’s no possibility of that aircraft ever having made a normal type of landing. It was going to crash,” said Tristani.
“In this particular case though, when you throw a blade, one blade or the entire head, no, you’re just a falling brick.”
The plane was running low on fuel before the disaster, according to 71-year-old Michael Roth, the owner of New York Helicopter, which supplied the tour and the helicopter.
“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 Telegraph.
Roth expressed his sadness over the collision and concurred with other experts that the primary rotor blades appeared to have broken off in the footage.
“The only thing I know by watching a video of the helicopter falling down, that the main rotor blades weren’t on the helicopter,” he told the New York Post.
“And I haven’t seen anything like that in my 30 years being in business, in the helicopter business. The only thing I could guess – I got no clue – is that it either had a bird strike or the main rotor blades failed. I have no clue. I don’t know.”
A “Catastrophic mechanical failure” left the pilot with no chance to save the helicopter, said Justin Green, an aviation lawyer who was a helicopter pilot in the Marine Corps.
The primary rotors of the helicopter might have collided with the tail boom, shattering it and sending the cabin plummeting to the ground, Green added.
“They were dead as soon as whatever happened happened,” Green said. “There’s no indication they had any control over the craft. No pilot could have prevented that accident once they lost the lifts. It’s like a rock falling to the ground. It’s heartbreaking.”
It was discovered that shortly before the disaster occurred, the 36-year-old pilot of the chopper radioed base to alert them that their fuel was running low. The crash also claimed his life.
The Escobar parents and their children, ages four, eight, and ten, were captured in heartbreaking pictures posing inside the plane and on the helipad prior to the disaster.
A local tour operator, New York Helicopter, flew the aircraft. Based on Flight Radar, the helicopter looked to be a Bell 206L-4, or N216MH.
Before plunging into the ocean, the aircraft hovered for around sixteen minutes. It departed from the Wall Street Heliport, circled the Statue of Liberty, and then flew at a height of roughly 1000 feet along the Hudson River to the George Washington Bridge.
As emergency personnel raced to the scene, dramatic footage showed the chopper plummeting into the ocean.
One individual reported that the struck aircraft made what sounded like a “sonic boom,” and others claimed to have seen the helicopter “split in half” before it crashed down close to Pier 40.
“Oh my god. Oh my gosh. Oh my goodness. Oh my gosh,” said a terrified witness who watched the helicopter fall into the river.
Bruce Wall, a witness near the shoreline of Jersey City, New Jersey, said he saw the helicopter “falling apart” in midair, with the tail and main rotor coming off. The main rotor continued to spin separately from the helicopter as it descended.
Dani Horbiak heard what sounded like “several gunshots in a row, almost, in the air” when she was at her home in Jersey City. She watched the helicopter “splash in several pieces into the river” as she peered out the window.
Dani Horbiak was at her Jersey City home when she heard what sounded like “several gunshots in a row, almost, in the air.” She looked out her window and saw the chopper “splash in several pieces into the river.”
On air traffic control radio, an NYPD helicopter pilot can be heard saying, “Be advised, you do have an aircraft down. Holland Tunnel. Please keep your eyes open for anybody in the water.”
About five minutes after that, someone asks, “Hey Finest,” a reference to the NYPD’s call sign, ‘what’s going on over there by the Holland Tunnel?’ – ‘The ship went down,’ someone else responds.
Late Thursday night, emergency personnel were observed removing the wrecked helicopter’s remains from the muddy Hudson River. Images showed a crane removing twisted metal chunks from the river.
According to a post on X by Jersey City Mayor Steven, dive crews will search the Hudson River on Friday for the aircraft’s key components, which have not yet been found.
“Recovery operations have been secured for the night. Major parts of the aircraft have not been recovered so dive operations by the NYPD and NJSP will resume tomorrow morning,” he said.
According to NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, two individuals were sent to the hospital and “succumbed to their injuries” after four were declared dead at the scene.
According to CNN, the weather was overcast with winds of 10 to 15 mph with gusts as high as 25 mph at the time of the collision.
Ten miles of surface visibility was deemed good, but the area was overcast due to a system that is en route and may deliver light rain this afternoon and evening. The temperature of the water was around fifty degrees.
Additional footage showed the helicopter “flying erratically” seconds before it crashed into the ocean.
“Our hearts go out to the families of those who were onboard,” Mayor Eric Adams said. “All six have been removed from the water, and sadly all six victims have been pronounced deceased.”
About 3:19 p.m. on Thursday, 30-year-old engineer Rashmi Kamkeri was working remotely from her Newport Park apartment when she heard a loud crash.
“It was horrifying,” Kamkeri told DailyMail.com. “I thought it was thunder and ten seconds later I saw the helicopter 10 feet above the water falling and then it made a big splash and went underneath the water.”
“I panicked… then saw a piece of the helicopter fall into the water. The Waterway boat was moving and then it took a turn.”
“I was almost in tears praying that someone would come and save them. I wished there would be someone who survives. I am so sad.”
While walking her rescued dog Archie in the rain on the West Side Highway, Anna noticed the lights and emergency personnel on the New Jersey side of the river.
“I saw the helicopter submerged in the water and then there was a lot of commotion,” she told DailyMail.com.
Another witness said, “One of my children said, what’s that sound?” I told him I didn’t know. My other child said, “Do you think it was an earthquake?” I said, ‘no we would feel it.’
My other child asked, “Do you think a building pancaked?”
According to his LinkedIn profile, Escobar spent more than 27 years working for the IT giant Siemens, most recently as the worldwide CEO for rail infrastructure at Siemens Mobility. He briefly served as Siemens Spain’s president and CEO in late 2022.
In a post about the position, he thanked his family, “my endless source of energy and happiness, for their unconditional support, love… and patience.”
Escobar frequently traveled abroad for work, notably to India and the UK in the last month, and frequently wrote about the value of sustainability in the rail sector. Since 2023, he has served as vice president of the German Chamber of Commerce for Spain.
“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,” Siemens said in a statement early Friday.
According to her LinkedIn profile, Camprubí Montal spent almost seven years working for Siemens Energy, an energy technology firm based in Barcelona, Spain, where she held positions as a digitalization manager and a worldwide commercialization manager.
According to representatives of the regional government of Spain, the family lived in Barcelona.
“(I am) dismayed by the tragic helicopter accident in the Hudson River in New York which cost the lives of six people, five of which were members of a Barcelona family,” Catalan regional president Salvador Illa wrote on X.
Agustin Escobar was originally from Puertollano, a town in central Spain, according to another regional official.
“I want to express my sorrow for the traffic helicopter accident in New York that claimed the lives of Agustín Escobar and his family,” Castilla La Mancha regional president Emiliano García-Page wrote on X.
“Agustín is native of Puertollano and in 2023 we named him a Favorite Son of Castilla La Mancha.”
Helicopters and airplanes doing private, commercial, and tourist flights frequently fill the sky over the Hudson River.
Business leaders and others use Manhattan’s several helipads to travel throughout the metropolitan area.
Since 1977, helicopter crashes in New York City have claimed the lives of at least 32 people.
The most recent disaster occurred in 2018 when a helicopter fell into the East River, killing five people.
According to the NTSB, the helicopter crashed on March 11, 2018, when the tail of the aircraft became stuck on the fuel shutoff lever.
Every passenger on board perished from drowning. They were identified as Carla Vallejos-Blanco, 29, Trevor Cadigan, 26, Brian McDaniel, 26, and Daniel Thompson, 34.
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