(NEW YORK) — A bird strike likely caused last year’s tourist helicopter crash in New York City’s Hudson River that killed all six people on board, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
The more than 2,000 pages of information released by the NTSB is not the final report and does not state the probable cause, but the documents show the chopper slammed into multiple large birds before the crash.
The birds hit the rotor blades and the horizontal stabilizer, according to an analysis by the Smithsonian Institution’s Feather Identification Lab. Samples of “mixed species” of birds were found, including Canada Geese and black-backed Gull. Canadian Geese can sometimes weigh more than 10 pounds each.
Videos showed the rotors flying off the helicopter as it plummeted to the water.
The chopper crashed into the Hudson in April 2025 while carrying a pilot and a family from Spain: Siemens executive Agustin Escobar, his wife Merce Camprubi Montal, and their three children.
One witness told ABC News she watched the helicopter “fall out of the sky” from her apartment window.
“I heard five or six loud noises that sounded almost like gunshots in the sky and saw pieces fall off, then watched it fall into the river,” she said.
Bird strikes are common; there were 20,876 bird strikes to civilian aircraft in the U.S. in 2024, according to the Wildlife strikes to Civil Aircraft report.
It is not clear when the NTSB’s final report — which will list the probable cause of the crash — will be released.
ABC News has reached out to the helicopter company for comment. New York Helicopter Charter inc. shutdown following the crash.
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