The pilot of the helicopter that crashed into the Hudson River yesterday (10 April) has been identified as 36-year-old former US Navy SEAL Sean Johnson.
All six people on board the helicopter were killed when it crashed into the river, with onlookers describing how the aircraft ‘split in half’ as it went down.
The New York Post reports that Johnson had recently moved to New York City for his aviation career.
Also on board the helicopter was a family of five from Spain, Agustín Escobar, the president of the Spanish branch of the technology company Siemens, his wife, Merce Camprubi Montal, and their three children, aged 4, 5 and 11.
The helicopter had been in the air for around 16 minutes and completed a circuit of the Statue of Liberty before flying over the Hudson River.
The helicopter pilot has been identified (Facebook/Sean Johnson)
The helicopter dropped into the water at around 3.15pm local time yesterday, with the emergency services rushing to the scene.
Four people were pronounced dead at the scene, while two others were rushed to hospital and later died before they ‘sadly both succumbed to their injuries’ as officials said.
A tribute posted on Facebook by Sean Johnson’s friend Earl Watters confirmed that the 36-year-old had been flying the helicopter and said: “With a heavy heart I post this…Thanks to everyone that has reached out to me.
“Yes, the pilot of the helicopter crash in NY was my Co-Pilot and great friend on Boomer last year Sean Johnson. (Navy Veteran)The world has lost an all around great person and amazing friend.
“He definitely changed my life for the better and I just want to celebrate his life and how he lived. Always and forever a BOOMER crew member Godspeed Amigo.”
All six people on board the helicopter died after it dropped from the skies into the Hudson River (Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Michael Roth, 71, the CEO of New York Helicopter Tours which operated the helicopter in question, said that Johnson had called in to say he was landing and ‘needed fuel’, but never arrived back.
He said that everyone there was ‘devastated’ over the aviation disaster
Roth said: “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.
“We’re all devastated. Every employee in our company is devastated. My wife has not stopped crying.
“The death of the child of any human being, is a monumental disaster.”
Witnesses to the disaster saw the helicopter ‘splitting in half’ and footage from the scene shows how the aircraft’s rotor blades were seen spinning in mid-air after having separated from the helicopter.
Authorities are investigating the crash
An American couple were left stunned after making an incredible discovery on a magnet fishing trip.
James Kane and Barbie Agostini, from New York, US, were left in disbelief as they were magnet fishing at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens on Friday (31 May).
As we all picked up a random hobby or two during the pandemic, the duo say they started the activity as a way of passing the time, with the hopes of one day finding something decent.
It beats my random bursts of awful baking.
Anyway, they were quite enjoying their new hobby because it was pretty easy and straight forward.
All it involves is attaching a really strong magnet to the end of a fishing rod. That’s it.
Amid their recent trip to the river, the couple were more than delighted with what they found.
Their massive magnet somehow picked up a ‘mystery box’ filled with cash.
The couple were stunned at what they found. (NY1)
James Kane and Barbie Agostini love treasure hunting. (NY1)
They couldn’t believe their luck when they managed to come across a metal safe containing a whopping £78,000 ($100,000).
James told NY1: “We have found plenty of safes before, this is just what a magnet fisher does.
“We pulled out and it was two stacks of freaking hundreds. Big stacks.”
“I couldn’t believe it,” Barbie added. “I lost it.”
Sadly, it seems that the money was damaged by water.
After informing the New York Police Department (NYPD), the force said they could not find any crime attached to the cash.
A lot of cash there. Sadly it wasn’t useable. (NY1)
This comes after Glasgow Magnet Fishing group’s Mark McGeachin and his son James fished out a number of dangerous objects last month.
Amongst the items were machetes, axes, and even a samurai sword.
“I started Glasgow Magnet Fishing group in 2019 and James was only six at the time. Soon after, we were searching the Union Canal near Sighthill in Edinburgh when James pulled this massive samurai sword out the water,” Mark told the Mirror.
The group founder claims that they unearth 100 items a years.
He said: “We’ve already handed seven guns to the police since the beginning of 2024. When we find them we phone 999 straight away.
“One time, in Maryhill, we contacted police after I found a machete, a ski mask and a pair of gloves all tied up in a bag and Cellotaped together.
“The mind does boggle, thinking about what has happened with these weapons before they were found.
“This stuff could potentially solve a murder and help a family get some closure. That’s the way I see it.”
Featured Image Credit: N1/Getty Stock Images
The recording from the cockpit of a plane which a pilot let his children fly has revealed the final moments inside the aircraft before disaster struck.
The plane was being flown by Andrew Viktorovich Danilov alongside first officer Igor Vasilyevich Piskaryov, while relief captain Yaroslav Vladimirovich Kudrinsky was also on board the flight.
Kudrinsky had brought his children Yana and Eldar onto the plane for their first international flight as Aeroflot Flight 593 journeyed from Moscow to Hong Kong on 23 March, 1994.
Kudrinsky invited his children into the cockpit so they could see where he worked, and had them sit in the pilot’s seat to ‘fly’ the plane as he believed that with the autopilot engaged they couldn’t do any actual harm.
However, autopilot on the plane disengaged after Eldar moved the control stick for over 30 seconds and contradicted the aircraft’s autopilot orders to keep things steady.
The pilots were unfamiliar with the aircraft and didn’t notice right away that autopilot had been disengaged, by the time they spotted the error it was too late to do much about it.
Aeroflot Flight 593 would end up crashing into Russia’s Kuznetsk Alatau mountain range, resulting in the deaths of 63 passengers and 12 crew members.
The chilling cockpit recording revealed the plane’s last moments, including the warnings Kudrinsky gave to his children as the aircraft started going out of control.
The aircraft started to roll and the reserve pilot warned his daughter Yana: “Don’t run there, or they’ll fire us.”
Things fell apart quickly as the pilots realised they had lost control of the passenger plane and being fired became the least of Kudrinsky’s worries.
One of the children knocked the flight off autopilot, and all on board died in the resulting crash (YouTube/MorfoAtari)
His last recorded words were shouting at his children to return to their seats.
Kudrinsky shouted: “Eldar, get away. Go to the back, go to the back Eldar!
“You see the danger don’t you? Go away, go away Eldar! Go away, go away. I tell you to go away!”
He was heard telling his children to ‘get out now’, and after that the pilots set about attempting to regain control of the plane.
They almost managed it but appeared to over-correct the flight path as it slammed into the mountain range at around 160mph.
Everyone on board the flight was killed in the crash, and while the airline initially tried to claim that the crew were not at fault the released audio showed how the catastrophic error had led to the deaths of all on board.
Featured Image Credit: YouTube/MorfoAtari
Topics: World News, Travel,
The retired pilot who managed to land a plane with two failed engines on New York’s Hudson River has a theory on why the recent tragic American Airlines crash happened.
Captain Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger was flying US Airways Flight 1549 on 15 January, 2009, when a bird strike caused two engines to fail shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport in New York.
Miraculously, he was able to safely land the Airbus A320 on the Hudson River in one piece, saving all 155 passengers and crew
What Captain Sully thinks of the tragic American Airlines crash
On Wednesday evening (29 January), 60 passengers and four crew members were travelling on American Airlines Flight 5432 when it crashed into a military helicopter carrying three soldiers. There were no survivors.
“There would have been fewer ground lights visible over the water than over land at night,” Captain Sully, now 74, told The New York Times.
“Nighttime always makes things different about seeing other aircraft — basically all you can do is see the lights on them.
“You have to try to figure out: Are they above you or below you? Or how far away? Or which direction are they headed? Everything is harder at night.”
Captain Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger is known for his heroics on the Hudson River (Seth Wenig-Pool/Getty Images)
What happened with American Airlines Flight 5432 and the US Army helicopter?
The plane had departed from Wichita, Kansas, and was preparing to land at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington D.C – an airport that requires additional training for pilots who operate from it due to its short runways and heavy traffic.
US Army helicopter Sikorsky H-60 – which had taken off from Fort Belvoir in Virginia – collided mid-air with the plane and the remains landed in the nearby Potomac River. At the time of writing, 41 bodies have been recovered from the water while 28 have been identified, as per Sky News.
“It seems apparent from the air traffic control communications that the airplanes were able to see each other, at least one was able to see the other,” Sully added.
“The air traffic controller was able to relieve himself of the requirement to have him separate the airplanes, and the pilots would have to separate from each other visually by identifying the other aircraft and staying a safe distance away.
“Obviously at some point, separation was tragically lost.”
Captain Sully has explained what he thinks of the tragic American Airlines crash (Petty Officer 1st Class Brandon Giles/U.S. Coast Guard via Getty Images)
‘…On rare occasions, a catastrophic event’
He compared the incident to a row of dominoes being ‘lined up the wrong way’.
“It’s hard to have the diligence and the dedication to adhere to best practices on every minute of every hour of every day, every week, every month, every year for a decades long aviation career,” the former pilot said.
“If all the dominoes line up in the wrong way, we could have on rare occasions a catastrophic event.
“Given enough time, given enough flights, given enough flight hours, eventually whatever can happen will happen unless we work very hard to prevent every incident from turning into an accident.”
Featured Image Credit: Andrew Burton/Getty Images
Topics: Travel, US News, American
In a second air tragedy this week, an air ambulance carrying a child crashed into a US neighbourhood on Friday evening (31 January).
The small medical transport plane was carrying four crew members, a child patient and her mother.
About 30 seconds after taking off from Northeast Philadelphia Airport, it crashed into several buildings and erupted in a fireball, setting several homes and vehicles on fire.
“At this time we cannot confirm any survivors,” said the Mexico-based air ambulance company Jet Rescue Air Ambulance that operated the plane.
The Mexican government said all those on board the jet were Mexican nationals.
The jet crashed last night. (Matthew Hatcher/Getty Images)
The young patient had been treated in Philadelphia for a life-threatening condition and was being flown back home to Mexico, according to Jet Rescue Air Ambulance spokesperson Shai Gold. The flight was set to stop in Springfield, Missouri before reaching its final destination in Tijuana.
“When an incident like this happens, it’s shocking and surprising,” Gold said. “All of the aircraft are maintained, not a penny is spared because we know our mission is so critical.”
Warning: contains distressing scenes
At a news conference late last night, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro said officials expect fatalities in this ‘awful aviation disaster’ and added: “We know that there will be loss.”
Mayor Cherelle Parker said information on fatalities was not immediately available but that a number of homes and vehicles had been damaged.
“This is still an active scene under investigation,” she said.
Homes and vehicles were set ablaze. (Matthew Hatcher/Getty Images)
Emergency crews had rushed to the scene as witnesses described a chaotic scene with injured people and structures engulfed in flames.
A doorbell camera captured footage of the plane falling from the sky and exploding in a fireball as it hit the ground of the residential neighbourhood.
“All we heard was a loud roar and didn’t know where it was coming from. We just turned around and saw the big plume,” said Jim Quinn, the owner of the doorbell camera.
What has Donald Trump said about the crash?
President Donald Trump posted on social media platform Truth Social it was ‘so sad’ to see the crash.
“More innocent souls lost,” he said. “Our people are totally engaged.”
The Philadelphia crash comes just two days after the US’ deadliest aviation disaster in almost a quarter century.
On Wednesday night, an American Airlines jet collided mid-air with an army helicopter over Washington, DC. All 60 passengers and four crew on the plane and the three soldiers on the chopper died in the crash.