At least five people were killed, and a sixth person, believed to be the pilot, was pulled from the water after a helicopter crashed into the Hudson River in New York City.
At least three people died when a helicopter tumbled out of the sky and plunged into the Hudson River between New Jersey and the West Village in Manhattan Thursday afternoon
According to law enforcement officials, the report of the downed aircraft near the West Side Highway and Spring Street came in shortly after 3 p.m. Thursday.
The law enforcement sources said the helicopter is believed to have been a tour charter flying along the Hudson at the time of the crash.
The cause isn’t clear, but the crash is under investigation.
Video of the crash shows the helicopter tumbling end over end and hitting the water at high speed. Witnesses on social media reported having seen a helicopter in distress.
In addition to the family of five — two adults and three children — a pilot was also on board, for a total of six people.
“Yet another deadly aviation incident under the Trump administration, as a helicopter carrying half a dozen people plunged into the Hudson River,” said New Jersey Democrat Lisa McCormick. “In February, Trump began a mass firing campaign targeting the Federal Aviation Administration, an agency that had been pursuing enforcement actions against companies led by billionaire Elon Musk.”
Among the staff whose jobs were eliminated were FAA workers focused on radar, landing and navigational maintenance as well as top regulators that had recently levied over $630,000 in civil penalties against SpaceX.
The Department of Transportation (DOT) and its sub-agency, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), were among several federal bodies targeted by the Trump Administration and the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), overseen by Musk.
The DOT had multiple active investigations into Tesla, while the FAA had ordered SpaceX to conduct a formal investigation into the explosion of a Starship vehicle during a test flight.
The FAA had previously levied over $630,000 in civil penalties against SpaceX. The DOT Inspector General was dismissed by Trump.
The FAA Administrator resigned effective January 20, citing pressure from Musk.
“These incompetent buffoons have only been in power for 80 days, but it feels like years,” said McCormick. “Things have been falling out of the sky since January 29, 2025, when a passenger flight collided in midair with a military helicopter, in the deadliest aviation tragedy in the United States since November 12, 2001.”
In the first six weeks of 2025, there were five major U.S. aviation disasters with at least 91 fatalities in the US, a number notably higher than in 2024.
All 67 people on board the Sikorsky Black Hawk army helicopter and Flight 5342, operated by American Eagle, a regional branch of American Airlines, died as plane flying from Wichita, Kansas, approached Ronald Reagan airport just outside Washington, DC.
The skies over Manhattan are routinely filled with both planes and helicopters, both private recreational aircraft and commercial and tourist flights. Manhattan has several helipads that whisk business executives and others to destinations throughout the metropolitan area.
Over the years, there have been multiple crashes, including a collision between a plane and a tourist helicopter over the Hudson River in 2009 that killed nine people and the 2018 crash of a charter helicopter offering “open door” flights that went down into the East River, killing five people.
Witnesses describe seeing something “catastrophic” that may have happened with the tail of the helicopter before the crash.
Aviation incidents had been more rare before Trump started taking apart government agencies. Hundreds of probationary employees were among those fired at the FAA, despite efforts to boost hiring in recent years.
Insiders have long warned that the FAA’s current workforce is stretched thin and the air traffic control system is chronically under-resourced.
“It is welcome news PASS received today that effective this week, the FAA is reinstating the 132 employees we represented who were summarily fired on February 14, 2025,” said David Spero, union president of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS).
The union noted that the termination notices appeared to have come from outside the government’s official communications systems, used to ensure the security of email messages, as well as transparency in the case of records requests.
A Maryland court ruling said that the terminations at various agencies—including the Department of Transportation—were unlawful.