The pilot of the tour helicopter that killed six people, including a family of five, in yesterday’s crash into the Hudson River advised his base that the helicopter needed to be refueled.
At approximately 3:15 p.m. on Thursday, April 10, the helicopter in question “split in half” before crashing close to Pier 40, according to tragic eyewitness accounts. The 36-year-old pilot, Agustin Escobar, his wife Merce Camprubi Montal, and their three children—ages four, five, and eleven—were among the six people who perished on board.
Escobar previously served as president of Siemens Mobility’s Spanish division and as CEO of Rail Infrastructure. He and his family had traveled from Barcelona to New York the day before the deadly accident, according to the Daily Mail.
According to reports, the helicopter was on a sightseeing tour and was in the air for about 16 minutes. It took off from Wall Street Heliport, circled the Statue of Liberty, and then flew up the Hudson River to the George Washington Bridge.
According to a recent update, minutes into the journey, the pilot radioed back to base to let them know that the helicopter was already running low on fuel.
Owner of New York Helicopter, a business that offers sky tours of the Big Apple, Michael Roth, 71, told The Telegraph that the pilot, who has not yet been named, had called the base to inform them that the group was heading back to the helipad. Sadly, they didn’t make it.
Helicopter crashed in Hudson! The chopper broke off midair and dropped!! pic.twitter.com/KpQGmM8x25
— Avirbhaw(Avi) Rakesh (@AvirbhawRakesh) April 10, 2025
“He [the pilot] called in to say he needed fuel and that he was landing, and he should have arrived in about three minutes, but he didn’t arrive in twenty minutes,” Roth said.
We’re all inconsolable. Every worker in our organization is inconsolable. “My wife is still crying,” he continued. “My phone blew up from everyone after I received a call from my manager and my downtown heliport, who said she had heard about a crash.
Then, while flying over the Hudson, one of my pilots noticed the helicopter inverted.
“Any human being’s child’s death is a great catastrophe.”
According to other reports, the helicopter seemed to disintegrate in midair, and a video posted to social media purports to show the aircraft’s rotors and tail coming loose.
Roth admitted to having “no clue” how the catastrophe had occurred to the New York Post.
“I only know that the main rotor blades weren’t on the helicopter because I watched a video of it going down,” he stated.
Since then, heartbreaking images of the family members who died in the crash have gone viral online, one of which depicts them posing on the helipad and inside the plane prior to takeoff.
BREAKING: Agustin Escobar, President and CEO of Siemens in Spain, along with his wife and their three children, were identified as the victims of the helicopter that plunged into the Hudson River in New York City on Thursday, according to the New York Post.
— RedWave Press (@RedWave_Press) April 11, 2025
The New York… pic.twitter.com/cGOiJWGFAx
During a news briefing yesterday, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisc stated that the plane “lost control and hit the water.”
“I looked up after hearing what sounded like a sonic boom, and I saw a helicopter splitting in two, with the rotor flying off in the sky. It was moving so fast that it just went straight into the water,” one witness told ABC News. That is unlike anything I have ever seen in my life.
May the six people who died in this terrible event rest in peace.
