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Beaming at the camera and sitting proudly in the cockpit of a helicopter on the eve of her ninth birthday, a little girl excitedly waited to take off and embark on a tour over the iconic New York City skyline with her parents and young siblings on Thursday.\n
But just 16 minutes later, tragedy struck when the eight-year-old, who had travelled to the Big Apple from\u00a0Spain\u00a0with her family, was\u00a0killed in a horror crash after the chopper plummeted into the Hudson River at 3.15pm yesterday.\nHer siblings, aged ten and four, also died in the horror crash, as well as her father Agustin Escobar, a Siemens executive, and mother Merce Camprubi Montal.\n
New York City\u00a0Mayor\u00a0Eric Adams\u00a0confirmed the children’s ages and said in a statement that the devastating crash ‘was a real unfortunate situation. And our heart goes out to the family members’.\nThe family were on vacation in New York to celebrate her ninth birthday, which would have been today.\n
The family-of-five had just arrived from Barcelona and embarked on their first day touring the Big Apple, taking a scenic trip in the helicopter as a treat for the young girl and her mother Merce, who officials said was also celebrating her birthday.\n
Commenting on the tragedy, Jersey City mayor Steven Fulop said: ‘The family flew out to extend the trip a couple days in NYC.\u00a0They were celebrating the mom’s 40th birthday with the tourist helicopter flight yesterday.’\n
It was unclear whether Fulop was referring to the holiday overall being a birthday trip for Merce or if the little girl’s mother was also celebrating her birthday on the fateful day.\n
The tragic twist emerged as terrifying new footage appears to show the cause of the tragedy.\n
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One of the Escobar children sits in the helicopter before the crash\n\n
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The family were on vacation in New York to celebrate the birthday of one of their children, according to Spanish newspaper El Diario. Heartbreaking photos showed the Escobar family posing on the helipad and inside the aircraft before the crash\n\n
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Harrowing footage captured the moment the helicopter rotor blade flew off and splashed into the Hudson River after the deadly crash\n\n
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A rotor blade can be seen plummeting into the water, with aviation experts saying that this likely occurred because the\u00a0main rotor blades separated from the aircraft\u00a0and sliced the tail.\n‘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.\n
‘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.\n
‘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.’\n
Another expert told\u00a0Fox 5\u00a0that in the case that the separating rotor blades sliced off the aircraft’s tail boom, the flight would have been unrecoverable.\n
‘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.\n
‘In this particular case though, when you throw a blade, one blade or the entire head, no, you’re just a falling brick.’\n
Michael Roth, 71, who\u00a0owns New York Helicopter\u00a0which provided the tour and the chopper, said the aircraft was\u00a0running out of fuel\u00a0before it crashed.\n‘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.\n
Roth said he was devastated by the crash and agreed with other experts that the video appears to show the main rotor blades had broken off.\n
‘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\u00a0New York Post.\n
‘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 \u2013 I got no clue \u2013 is that it either had a bird strike or the main rotor blades failed. I have no clue. I don’t know.’\n
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.\n
It is possible the helicopter’s main rotors struck the tail boom, breaking it apart and causing the cabin to free fall, Green said.\n
‘They were dead as soon as whatever happened happened,’ Green said. ‘There’s no indication they had any control over the craft.\u00a0No pilot could have prevented that accident once they lost the lifts. It’s like a rock falling to the ground. It’s heartbreaking.’\n
It comes as it was revealed that the helicopter’s unidentified pilot, 36, radioed base to\u00a0warn that they were running out of fuel\u00a0just before the tragedy struck. He was also killed in the crash.\n\n
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Agust\u00edn Escobar, a Siemens executive from Spain, his wife Merce Camprubi Montal and their three children, aged four, eight and 10, took photos just before the crash\n\n
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Aviation experts explained that the crash likely occurred because the helicopter’s (pictured before crashing) main rotor blades separated from the aircraft and sliced the tail\n
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Witnesses said they saw the chopper ‘split in half’ before it went down near Pier 40, with one man reporting the stricken aircraft making what sounded like a ‘sonic boom’\n\n
Heartbreaking\u00a0photos showed the Escobar parents and their kids, aged four, eight and 10, posing\u00a0on the helipad and inside the aircraft before the crash.\nThe aircraft was operated by New York Helicopter, a local tour company.\u00a0The chopper appeared to be a N216MH – a Bell 206L-4, according to Flight Radar.\n
The helicopter flew for approximately 16 minutes before going down into the water.\u00a0 It took off from the Wall Street Heliport and did a circle near the Statue of Liberty before flying up the Hudson River to the George Washington Bridge at about 1000 feet.\n
Dramatic video showed the helicopter sinking into the water as emergency crews rushed to the scene.\n
Witnesses said they\u00a0saw the chopper ‘split in half’\u00a0before it went down near Pier 40, with one man reporting the stricken aircraft making what sounded like a ‘sonic boom.’\n‘Oh my god. Oh my gosh. Oh my goodness. Oh my gosh,’ said a terrified witness who watched the helicopter fall into the river.\n
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 was still spinning without the helicopter as it fell.\n
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.’\n
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The family had just arrived from Barcelona and embarked on their first day touring the Big Apple\n\n
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Emergency responders were seen late Thursday night pulling the remnants of the destroyed helicopter from the murky water of the Hudson River\n\n
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Devastating photos show debris from the helicopter tour floating in the Hudson River including a pink shoe\n\n
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The helicopter was spinning uncontrollably with ‘a bunch of smoke coming out’ before it slammed into the water, said Lesly Camacho, a hostess at a restaurant along the river in Hoboken, New Jersey.\n
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.’\n
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.\n
Emergency responders were seen late Thursday night\u00a0pulling the remnants of the destroyed helicopter from the murky water of the Hudson River. Photos showed a crane pulling mangled clumps of metal out of the river.\nJersey City Mayor Steven\u00a0explained in a post on X that major parts of the aircraft have not yet been recovered, so dive teams will scour the Hudson River for the parts on Friday.\n
‘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.\n
Four people were pronounced dead at the scene, and two others were taken to the hospital, where they ‘succumbed to their injuries,’\u00a0NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.\n
At the time of the crash, it was cloudy with winds around 10 to 15 mph with gusts up to 25 mph,\u00a0CNN\u00a0reported.\n
Surface visibility was considered good \u2014 10 miles \u2014 but it was cloudy as a system is moving into the region, bringing light rain to the region this afternoon and evening. The water was about 50 degrees\u00a0Fahrenheit.\n
Other footage showed the chopper ‘flying erratically’ just before it fell into the water, while other clips showed pieces of the aircraft were seen flying off.\n
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Emergency responders enter the water after the helicopter crash.\u00a0The National Transportation Safety Board has announced it launched a ‘go team’ to investigate\n\n