New York – New York Senator Chuck Schumer asks the federal authorities to revoce the operational permits of the Tour helicopter company whose tourist helicopter He broke into the air and immersed himself in the Hudson River on ThursdayKilling a family of five visiting from Spain and the pilot, a veteran from Navy Seal.
At a press conference on Sunday, Schumer said the company, New York helicopter toursIt should be required to stop all flights, since the National Transport Security Board investigates the fatal accident.
The leader of the Senate Democratic minority also asked the Federal Aviation Administration to increase security inspections for other helicopter tours companies, accusing them of “cutting corners and giving profits about people.”
The victims included passengers Agustin Escobar, 49, his wife, Mercè Camprubí Montal, 39, and his three children, Victor, 4, Mercedes, 8, and Agustín, 10. The pilot was Seankese Johnson, 36, a veteran of the United States Navy who received the license of his commercial pilot in 2023.
“One of the things we can do to honor those lives and try to save others is to make sure that it does not happen again,” said Schumer. “We know that there is a safe thing about helicopter tours companies in New York City: they have a deadly history.”
Thursday’s accident has Rews Security Safety Reject On New York tourism excursions, a popular tourist raffle that leads passengers over the city, offering high views of the Statue of Liberty, the World Trade Center and other reference points.
In the last two decades, five helicopters in commercial tourism flights have fallen into the Hudson and East rivers as a result of mechanical failures, pilot errors or collisions, Kill.
New York President Helicopter Tours, Michael Roth, did not respond to telephone and email consultations. The company said in a statement published on its website that was cooperating with the authorities in the investigation.
In response to Schumer calls for greater supervision, a group of industry, the Helicopter Council of the Eastern region, said Manhattan Tourism Helicos, “they already operate under the strictest regulations.”
“We are ready to work with leaders to find ways to guarantee the security and preservation of our business and the aviation community,” said the group.
Industry critics have tried for a long time to limit or completely prohibit non -essential helicopter flights that take off above the city, although they have had limited success. After New York City limited the amount of flights that could take off from Manhattan Heliports to 30,000 annually in 2016, many companies moved operations to New Jersey.
Two years later, in 2018, five people died when a helicopter that offers “open door” flights crashed in East River After a passenger’s moderation strap was hooked on a fuel switch, stopping the engine.
The cause of Thursday’s accident is not yet determined. According to Schumer, the rescue divers continued to look for the main rotor and the helicopter assembly gears, which would give clues about what happened.
