The company that operated the helicopter that crashed into the Hudson River in New York last week, killing all six people on board, will shut down immediately, the Federal Aviation Administration said late Sunday.
New York Helicopter Tours is “shutting down their operations immediately,” the FAA said in a statement on X, adding that it would launch a review of the company’s license and safety records.
The company is already subject to an investigation from the National Transportation Safety Board, which said Saturday that the helicopter was not fitted with any flight recorders or onboard cameras.
A family of five visiting from Spain including three children — plus the pilot — were killed when the helicopter plunged into the river Thursday.
They were Agustin Escobar, 49 and Mercè Camprubí Montal, 39, and their three children, Victor, 4, Mercedes, 8, and Agustin, 10. The pilot, 36-year-old Seankese Johnson, was a U.S. Navy veteran who qualified as a commercial pilot in 2023 with more than 800 hours’ flying time.
The company’s website was still online early Monday and has for several days displayed a message to say it is “profoundly saddened by the tragic accident and loss of life that occurred on April 10, 2025, involving one of our helicopters in the Hudson River.”
The message said all press enquiries would be handled by federal agencies. The company’s president, Michael Roth, did not respond to requests for comment from the The Associated Press.
The incident has thrown a spotlight on the safety of civilian helicopter flights in New York and nationally.
Hours before the FAA’s announcement, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., used a news conference to call for the company to cease flights until a full investigation had been concluded. He called for so-called “ramp inspections,” or unscheduled safety checks, for other New York helicopter flights, which he described as risky.
New York Mayor Eric Adams dismissed talk of a full ban on helicopter tours in the city in an interview Friday.
The Eastern Regional Helicopter Council, an industry group, told the AP that the city’s sightseeing tours “already operate under the most stringent of regulations.”
The FAA said it was “already analyzing airplane/helicopter hotspots nationwide” and it is hosting a helicopter safety panel April 22 to discuss its findings and recommendations.
