New York City helicopter crashes have claimed dozens of lives over the last few decades, records show

Several dozen people have died in helicopter crashes in New York City over the last half century — including a family of five who perished when a tourist helicopter collided with a small plane in 2009, according to news accounts and public records.

Thursday afternoon’s crash — with six fatalities — could measure up to be the deadliest single-craft accident in recent history.

According to The Associated Press, 38 people have died in helicopter failures since 1977, the last had occurred in 2019.

• June 11, 2019 — A pilot radioed that he was lost in foggy weather before slamming into a Manhattan skyscraper.
• March 11, 2018 — A tourist helicopter went down in the East River on the Upper East Side after one of the five sightseers onboard inadvertently pulled the fuel cutoff switch. The pilot escaped the crash, but all five passengers died after the aircraft flipped over and they were unable to unbuckle their safety harnesses.
• Oct. 4, 2011 — A helicopter pilot took his friends for a tour of the city. After a brief landing at 34th Street, they went up again, gaining 60 feet of altitude before suffering rotor failure. The pilot and the front seat passenger were uninjured in the crash and tried to help the others, but the craft filled with water and sank. One passenger drowned at the scene and two others were hospitalized and eventually succumbed to injuries related to near drowning more than a month later.
• Aug. 8, 2009 — Nine people died when a small engine plane collided with a helicopter over the Hudson River parallel to 14th Street in Manhattan, but closer to the Hoboken side. Five members of an Italian family vacationing in New York City were killed from the blunt force trauma of the crash, according to the medical examiner.
• Oct. 5, 2011 — Two British tourists, a mother and daughter, were killed when the Bell 206 helicopter they were in lost altitude and crashed into the East River shortly after takeoff. The NTSB determined the aircraft was too heavy to fly.
• April 15, 1997 — A Colgate-Palmolive executive died when a company helicopter suffered airframe failure off East 60th Street and plummeted into the East River.
• 1990: One person died after the pilot of an Island Helicopter air taxi misjudged the wind during a takeoff from the East 34th Street heliport and flies into the river.
• February 1988: A passenger drowned when a sightseeing helicopter lost power and made a forced landing in the East River.
• 1986: An NBC radio traffic reporter died when the helicopter she  was in lost lift, hit a fence and crashed into the Hudson.
• 1985: A passenger drowned when a sightseeing flight operated by New York Helicopters crashed into the East River after taking off from the East 34th Street heliport.
• 1983: A seaplane coming in for a landing on the East River collided with a police helicopter over the Brooklyn waterfront, killing four people.
• 1977: A rotor broke loose from a New York Airways helicopter on a landing pad atop the Pan Am Building and killed five people, including one on the street two blocks away. The helipad closed after the accident.

With The Associated Press