CHOPPER HORROR
East River tourist crash kills all five passengers
A tourist helicopter plunged into the East River near Gracie Mansion on Sunday night, killing all f ive passengers—who were trapped by their safety harnesses inside the sin king aircraft. Only the pilot survived.
A tourist helicopter crashed into the East River on Sunday night, killing two passengers and leaving three clinging to life after they were trapped inside the sinking craft while the pilot scrambled to safety, police sources said.
The Eurocopter AS350 went down around 88th Street, near Gracie Mansion, at about 7:15 p.m.
The pilot, identified as Richard Vance, 33, got out and climbed aboard a raft, sources said.
“There was about a minute where we didn’t see anyone come out, then after a minute we saw a man come out holding onto a raft screaming, ‘Help! help! Ah!’ and then inaudible screams,” said a witness, Brianna Jesme. “It was horrifying.”
Five others remained trapped inside the upside-down helicopter because they were strapped into their seats, FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro said.
“One of the most difficult parts of the operation we’re told is the five people, besides the pilot, were all tightly harnessed, so harnesses had to be removed in or- der to get these folks off the helicopter, which was upside down at the time,” Nigro explained.
Two people were pronounced dead at the scene, and three others were hospitalized in critical condition, Nigro said.
“They’re not gonna make it,” a high-ranking police source told The Post.
Another witness, Mary Lee, 66, told The Post that she saw the chopper go down from her apartment window and said she “immediately thought someone was in there and not going to live — it’s cold water, it was sinking really fast. By the time we got out here, we couldn’t see it. It was under water.”
Vance had called in an emergency engine failure to the La Guardia Airport air-traffic control tower twice before crashing, according to a source.
Video posted to Twitter showed the red chopper splash down in the river and go belly-up as its rotors hacked at the water.
Within minutes, the helicopter disappeared under the water, said another witness, John Magers, 24.
“It looked like it was completely submerged,” he said. “It couldn’t have been any longer than five minutes.”
“It just went like a rock, a boulder,” said a woman named Bonnie who was sitting on Carl Schurz Park’s riverfront promenade at East 86th Street when she saw the chopper go down.
The helicopter is operated by New Jersey-based Liberty Helicopters, officials said.
It had taken off from the HHI Heliport in Kearny, NJ, which is listed as Liberty’s address in FAA records.
Liberty could not immediately be reached for comment.
Vance’s father, Anthony Vance, said his son had been flying with the company for “a couple years,” but he didn’t know exactly when the Connecticut native started. He said he had talked to his son earlier in the day.
“He’s a very good pilot,” the elder Vance said, noting that Richard has flown for “a lot of years” with a commercial pilot’s license.
Sources said the chopper he was flying on Sunday was chartered for a “doors off ” photographic or video shoot, meaning the aircraft flew with its doors removed so those inside could take pictures without the windows getting in the way.
Aerial photographer Eric Adams speculated that the straps
meant to keep shutterbugs from falling out of the chopper were their undoing in the crash.
“Everybody knows how to undo a seat belt, but harnesses are different — they’re anchored to the floor of the helicopter,” he said.
“It could have been very difficult for passengers to extricate themselves from the helicopter.”
First responders performed CPR on some of the victims after pulling them from the water more than an hour after the crash.
It was not the first fatal crash involving Liberty in recent years. Nine people were killed in August 2009 when a Liberty helicopter collided with a Piper propeller plane over the Hudson.
The families of five Italian citizens killed in the crash sued Lib- erty and parent company Meridian Consulting I Corporation Inc.
The wife of pilot Steven Altman, who was at the controls of the Piper, also sued Liberty and the parent company.
The FAA and NTSB are investigating Sunday’s crash.