Helicopter/Small Plane Down in Hudson

Another unfortunate incident on New York's Hudson river.

Not so heroic this time...

NEW YORK (AP) — A small plane collided with a sightseeing helicopter carrying Italian tourists over the Hudson River on Saturday, scattering debris in the water and forcing people on the New Jersey waterfront to scamper for cover. Authorities believe all nine people aboard the two aircraft were killed.
Another helicopter pilot on the ground at the heliport for Liberty Tours, which operated the doomed sightseeing craft, saw the plane approaching the helicopter and tried to radio an alert to the pilots, police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said. The warning wasn't heard or didn't happen in time.
The collision, which Mayor Michael Bloomberg said was "not survivable," happened just after noon and was seen by thousands of people enjoying a crystal-clear summer day from the New York and New Jersey sides of the river.
"First I saw a piece of something flying through the air. Then I saw the helicopter going down into the water," said Kelly Owen, a Florida tourist at a Manhattan park. "I thought it was my imagination."
The two aircraft went down just south of the stretch of river where a US Airways jet landed safely seven months ago. But this time, there was no miracle.
"This is not going to have a happy ending," Bloomberg said. Hours after the collision, he said he thought it fair to say "this has changed from a rescue to a recovery mission."
The National Transportation Safety Board was investigating the cause of the collision.
Two bodies were recovered in the water, one floating free and one in the wreckage, and other bodies were spotted in the debris in the river, the mayor said. The crash victims included five Italian tourists and a pilot on the helicopter and the three people on the plane, including a child, Bloomberg said.
Witnesses described seeing a low-flying plane smashing into the helicopter, and then wreckage scattering. One of the plane's wings was severed by the impact.
Buzz Nahas was walking along the Hoboken, N.J., waterfront when he heard the impact, then looked up to see the plane without one of its wings "fluttering" into the water.
"There was a loud pop, almost like a car backfire," he said. "The helicopter dropped like a rock."
The plane, headed for Ocean City, N.J., left Teterboro Airport in New Jersey at 11:54 a.m., the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said in a statement. It had landed at the airport 25 minutes earlier with the pilot aboard to pick up two passengers.
The plane had started its journey in Pennsylvania, an official familiar with the plane's flight path told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly.
The plane, a Piper PA-32, was registered to LCA Partnership in Fort Washington, Pa. The address is shared by a company run by Steven Altman, of Ambler, Pa. A woman who answered the telephone Saturday at Altman's home hung up, and police wouldn't let reporters enter a private driveway leading to the home.
The helicopter was a Eurocopter AS 350 owned by Liberty Tours, a sightseeing and charter company. It was struck by the plane shortly after lifting off from a heliport on Manhattan's West side.
On the Hoboken, N.J., waterfront, people scattered as pieces of debris fell from the sky. A wheel from one of the aircraft lay on Hoboken's Sinatra Drive.
"We saw the helicopter propellers fly all over," Hoboken resident Katie Tanski said.
Afterward, much of the wreckage sank quickly into the river.
The accident happened in a busy general aviation corridor over the river that is often filled with sightseeing craft on nice days.
Pilots have some freedom to pick their own route, as long as they stay under 1,000 feet and don't stray too close to Manhattan's skyscrapers. The skies over the river are often filled with pleasure craft, buzzing by for a view of the Statue of Liberty.
Steve Riethof, a volunteer at the Aviation Hall of Fame in Teterboro, said Saturday that pilots headed for the Jersey Shore from Teterboro generally fly through Manhattan.
Accidents happen every few years. New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle and his flight instructor died when their plane hit a skyscraper while flying a popular sightseeing route in 2006.
In January, the river was the scene of a spectacular aircraft landing that resulted in no loss of life after a US Airways flight taking off from LaGuardia Airport, in Queens, slammed into a flock of birds and lost power in both engines. The plane crash-landed in the river, and all 155 people on board were pulled to safety.
The NTSB has long expressed concern that federal safety oversight of helicopter tours isn't rigorous enough. The Federal Aviation Administration hasn't implemented more than a dozen NTSB recommendations aimed at improving the safety of the tours, called on-demand flight operations.
A report by the U.S. Department of Transportation's inspector general last month found that 109 people died in accidents involving on-demand flights in 2007 and 2008, while no one died in commercial airline accidents.
The identities of the victims of Saturday's crash were not immediately released. Italian Foreign Ministry spokesman Maurizio Massari confirmed there were Italians aboard the helicopter and said the ministry was working to find out further details through diplomats and authorities in New York.
Paola Casali, from Rome, was scheduled to take a helicopter tour with Liberty after noon on Saturday, but her 13-year-old son, Lorenzo, was too scared to go.
"I feel very, really lucky," Casali said. "I think God was in our life. Today is the beginning of a new life, to catch every moment, every minute of this life."
A person who answered the phone at a Liberty Tours office said the company would be releasing a statement. The company runs sightseeing excursions around the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and Manhattan at costs ranging from $130 to about $1,000.
Two years ago, a Liberty helicopter fell 500 feet from the sky during a sightseeing trip. The pilot was credited with safely landing the chopper in the Hudson and helping evacuate her seven passengers.
In 1997, a rotor on one of its sightseeing helicopters clipped a Manhattan building, forcing an emergency landing. No one was hurt.
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TangoWhiskey said:
You know, the media really ticks me off sometimes, at their general lack of sensitivity in an effort to scoop the others:

GIVE HER A BREAK AND SOME TIME TO GRIEVE FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. It bothers me greatly when they call victims families in the immediate hours following a tragedy.
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Yeah, it seems like incredibly poor taste for them to do this.
 
Re: Another unfortunate incident on New York's Hudson river.

Search function must have malfunctioned again.
 
The first reporter in the NBC Nightly News was a pilot and gave the true story...crowded airspace...lots of flights...they see and avoid just like cars on the roads...stay to the right...planes have the right of way over helicopters. They just had to mention Scully.
 
wsuffa said:
At risk of sending this to Spin Zone, once again,the MSM is trying to whip folks into a frenzy for more regulatiions.
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Bill as an MC member I am surprised that you think aviation politics needs to go into the SZ. That has never been a policy here. I hope you simply misspoke and are not articulating a new policy of PoA.
 
smigaldi said:
Bill as an MC member I am surprised that you think aviation politics needs to go into the SZ. That has never been a policy here. I hope you simply misspoke and are not articulating a new policy of PoA.
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Scott, if you've got a beef with me personally, take it off line. This is wholly inappropriate for this thread.

That said, and to clarify for others, discussion of the political bent of the media does not belong here, it belongs in Spin Zone. In addition, aviation topics (including some involving TSA) that degrade into primarily political discussions belong in Spin Zone.
 
Some actual facts that will have no bearing on OMG! BAN PLANES! the whargarble:

The Piper had just departed Teterboro - so much for closing the Hudson VFR corridor.

It will be THEY NEED TO BAN PLANES!, because somehow tourist helicopters with 6 on board are a more noble mission than transportation aircraft with 6 on board. Especially if the tourists are visiting from Europe.

Any mention that the plane had the right of way will be ignored, or maybe that law needs to be changed.
 
And the politicians weigh in:

NY Times said:
On Saturday, a new round of scrutiny was called for, this time as Gov. Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey and others said they hoped there would be an examination of the rules regarding air traffic above the Hudson.

“I would hope that in due course that maybe we will have to take a step back and look at the traffic flow so we can protect folks and their families,” Mr. Corzine said, speaking in Hoboken.

Scott M. Stringer, the Manhattan borough president, zeroed in on two issues — communications and coordination. He noted that planes usually fly north or south along the river while helicopters can fly east to west, causing a potential for conflicting trajectories. And he questioned how small planes and helicopters interact.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/nyregion/09corridor.html?hp
 
wsuffa said:
And the politicians weigh in:



http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/nyregion/09corridor.html?hp
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Yes, and the politician on the other side:
Controlling the space by shutting it off to aircraft is not realistic or wanted, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said.
“It may be one of those things where no amount of restrictions, other than preventing aircraft from coming into the area, could have prevented,” he said. “And that’s not something that anybody wants either.”
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:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

OTOH, the manager of the airport where the helicopters are based said:
“Every pilot’s job is to see and avoid,” said Mr. Dudley, who is the director of the municipal airport in Linden, N.J., which serves as home base for several helicopter pilots.
When he heard news of Saturday’s collision between a helicopter and a private plane, Mr. Dudley immediately thought of the congested skies above the city. He said he suspected that the airplane ran into the back of the slower-moving helicopter, which he said should have had the right of way if it was rising from a lower altitude.
“You cannot see behind you in a helicopter,” Mr. Dudley said.
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I was unaware that there was any special right of way granted to either a helicopter or and aircraft that is climbing. And a helicopter can stop and turn and effectively see behind it in a much smaller space than an airplane.

At least the NYTimes published a link to the 91.113, though they failed to note that it does not support My. Dudley's contention.
 
Plane was based at Wings. Not too many Saratogas here. I think I know the guy (not by name). :frown3:
 
Ok It was a Lance not a Saratoga. Look at the mid air photos and you can clearly see a hershey bar not tapered wing. It may seem like a trivial difference to some but I personally know the Toga owners at Wings so it is a big difference. I know the accident plane well too but not so much the pilot. Just a tradgedy all the way around.
 
SkyHog said:
I thought you had to be down around 500ft around the statue to avoid the Bravo?
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Nope... the 500-foot shelf begins just west of the statue... in the area where one might normally make a turn around it, the exclusion goes up to 1100.
But fixed-wing traffic often flies much lower not only near the statue, but over underneath the 500-foot shelf... perfectly all right, but unless you are looking for traffic and not at the sights, it's not a good idea.
 
jfmhpn said:
His quote that I liked a lot was in that article:

~~~ snip ~~~~
The Mayor, who does have his pilot's license, said, "If you want to look at the numbers, we have very few accidents for an awful lot of traffic. And any time you have an automobile accident, you're not going to go and close the streets or prohibit people from driving."
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Why, that sounds like... common sense! Amazing.
 
mikea said:
The NBC reporter a pilot, did a decent job of explaining - was almost lusting over getting some live security footage.
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mikea said:
The first reporter in the NBC Nightly News was a pilot and gave the true story...crowded airspace...lots of flights...they see and avoid just like cars on the roads...stay to the right...planes have the right of way over helicopters. They just had to mention Scully.
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He was on again tonight. His name is Jeff Rossen. He did another good job.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26639476/
 
Great.

Ben Lane warned fellow helicopter pilot Jeremy Clarke on Saturday that the plane was bearing down on him.

Lane tells the Daily News that another pilot heard him scream "Watch out! Watch out!"

He doesn't remember screaming. But he does recall seeing a wing and chopper blades falling before both aircraft plummeted, killing nine.

He searched for survivors, but there were none.

Lane says a crash was inevitable along the busy corridor. He says helicopter pilots stay in constant radio contact. But many small plane pilots — he calls them "weekend warriors" — do not.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-ap-ny-hudson-mid-air-collision-warning,0,1511273.story
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Got that? If you depart Teterboro, you're a "weekend warrior."

Imagine if Scully had made Teterboro and they were screaming to close it now. 'course then it wouldn't have been much of a story.
 
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Assuming See-and-Avoid works, doesn't the aircraft (whatever type) overtaking another aircraft (whatever type) have the responsibility to manuever around (to the right) the overtaken aircraft?

Still haven't seen an answer about TCAS on the Eurocopter. Does anybody know if it was required?
 
Schumer weighs in:
WSJ said:
"I have long believed that virtually unregulated general aviation flight traffic over the Hudson River poses a serious safety and security risk," Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) said in a statement. "At the conclusion of this investigation, the FAA, along with the NTSB and other relevant agencies, must take a long look at toughening up flight restrictions and monitoring of the Hudson River airspace in order to avoid another tragedy."
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And I just heard one of the talking heads on TV comparing this to Cerritos and stating how SOMETHING has to be done NOW to prevent another tragedy.
 
TMetzinger said:
Assuming See-and-Avoid works, doesn't the aircraft (whatever type) overtaking another aircraft (whatever type) have the responsibility to manuever around (to the right) the overtaken aircraft?

Still haven't seen an answer about TCAS on the Eurocopter. Does anybody know if it was required?
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Problem is the TCAS would have been blarring nonstop in that area.
 
TMetzinger said:
Assuming See-and-Avoid works, doesn't the aircraft (whatever type) overtaking another aircraft (whatever type) have the responsibility to manuever around (to the right) the overtaken aircraft?
...
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The NTSB report is going to prove that the chopper had no way to see the plane...and possibly, if the plane was in a right turn the chopper was hidden below the wing.

As I said, this will was cause a loud call for mandatory ADS-B even though THAT would have been useless with non-stop warnings, too. It never matters if the cure won't cure.
 
One accident.

Hmm. I think they're right. The Hudson air corridor should be banned to non-commercial traffic. They should, using the same logic, limit automobile traffic on the Taconic Parkway. I can't believe they let little cars on that road -- it was just a matter of time before some drunk got into a headon and killed lots of people. Those little cars are dangerous. Roads should be left to the big trucks and transporters only.

/Sarcasm off.
 
Anybody heard anything about what altitude this occurred at? I have read that the plane was level at 1100 and the heli was climbing, but that seems weird, because they usually don't climb that high out of there for a tour. Don't know if the "1100" reported is confirmed by ATC records (they should have been squawking VFR in that area).
 
flyersfan31 said:
One accident.

Hmm. I think they're right. The Hudson air corridor should be banned to non-commercial traffic. They should, using the same logic, limit automobile traffic on the Taconic Parkway. I can't believe they let little cars on that road -- it was just a matter of time before some drunk got into a headon and killed lots of people. Those little cars are dangerous. Roads should be left to the big trucks and transporters only.

/Sarcasm off.
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Actually, big trucks and transporters are banned from the Taconic. Banning autos will turn it back into a park where very few traffic accidents should occur.
 
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AuntPeggy said:
Actually, big trucks and transporters are banned from the Taconic. Banning autos will turn it back into a park where very few traffic accidents should occur.
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Yeah I knew that. I figured someone would point that out. I was using the example of that horrible head-on collision to make a point about knee-jerk reactions to the Hudson air accident.

I couldn't think of a recent, well-publicized accident on I-95 to use in my example.
 
Stolen/plagarized from a Frank Holbert post on Flightaware...
http://www4.passur.com/ewr.html
Set the time to 11:52, August 8th, 10 mile range, click start.
Give it some time to get going.
N71MC will appear over the word Union of Union City. The other aircraft appears a few seconds later over the river southbound near the M in Mathatten.
The Lance was holding 1100 ft pretty precisely...

rottydaddy said:
Anybody heard anything about what altitude this occurred at? I have read that the plane was level at 1100 and the heli was climbing, but that seems weird, because they usually don't climb that high out of there for a tour. Don't know if the "1100" reported is confirmed by ATC records (they should have been squawking VFR in that area).
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Breathless talking head on the radio in LA today:

"Experts say this could happen in the skies over LAX. Many people could get KILLED!"
 
Kelvin said:
Stolen/plagarized from a Frank Holbert post on Flightaware...
http://www4.passur.com/ewr.html
Set the time to 11:52, August 8th, 10 mile range, click start.
Give it some time to get going.
N71MC will appear over the word Union of Union City. The other aircraft appears a few seconds later over the river southbound near the M in Mathatten.
The Lance was holding 1100 ft pretty precisely...
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Huh. I'd assumed the fixed-wing pilot was lower because I've never seen those helis go very high at all leaving that pad westbound to cross the river, certainly not where they'd be joining the fixed-wing "pattern" over the west bank of the river. And I've never, ever had a chopper at my altitude (announced, seen, or both) when flying through there.
But obviously I haven't seen it all ...
 
Hard to watch, but I want to understand what happened...

Looks to me like the chopper was already flying south, parallel to the riverbank and almost right over it, and the plane had just entered the corridor from the NW and was about to turn to go the same way.

It kinda looks like he'd have spotted the chopper if he'd looked right there early enough. I say that because when you first see the Piper in this clip, as the camera pans left, it doesn't look like the chopper is under the wing or the nose quite yet (in terms of sight lines). But at that moment, the Piper pilot was probably looking downriver, planning his turn. Maybe he heard the chopper at least make the takeoff call (if not report turning downriver at 1100 [?] ), but assumed it would be much lower, and didn't fret over it.
Or maybe he was just looking diligently all around... except his low 10-11 o'clock. :nonod:

But maybe visual contact was made, but just not in time... doesn't seem like it to me, but I guess we'll never know. :nonod:


Entering or leaving that corridor is where you have to be most vigilant and really check every inch of glass you have available... then check it again. It's a lot like entering a runway traffic pattern... you can't assume anything.
I recall at least one time I was about to turn west to exit the corridor, climbing a bit after transiting northbound, just past the GWB... I had another look along the "lane" entering from the north, over the cliffs, and there was a turboprop commuter, 1500-2000, and descending gradually (probably headed into KEWR). They weren't on the CTAF, at least they weren't talking... didn't have to be. It's not like it was a near-miss or anything, but it was close enough to be... educational.
 
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