Crashed helicopter pilot had said he was low on fuel

The pilot of a sightseeing helicopter that crashed into New York's Hudson River on Thursday killing all six people onboard had reportedly sent a radio message moments earlier saying he was low on fuel and was heading back to the helipad, its operators said yesterday.

- Sam Jones Madrid Richard Luscombe

Michael Roth, the chief executive of New York Helicopter Tours, described how the pilot never made it back to the Downtown Manhattan heliport from which it had taken off from about 16 minutes earlier on its sixth flight of the day, the Telegraph reported.

"He called in that he was landing and that he needed fuel, and it should have taken him about three minutes to arrive, but 20 minutes later, he didn't arrive," Roth said.

As well as the pilot, the crash killed five members of a Spanish family. The victims were identified as Agustin Escobar, an executive of the technology company Siemens, his wife, Merce Camprubi, who was celebrating her 40th birthday, and their three children aged 10, eight and four, according to the New York mayor, Eric Adams.

The middle child would have celebrated their ninth birthday yesterday, Adams said. The pilot had not been publicly named by last night. The firm had not responded to a request from the Guardian for comment.

Steven Fulop, the Jersey City mayor, said a relative was arriving from Spain to take home the family members' remains.

He said divers had returned to the river early yesterday morning to salvage sections of the helicopter. Fulop said "major parts" of the Bell 206 aircraft broke apart in midair and plunged into the water.

Videos posted on social media showed large chunks of the helicopter, including rotor blades spinning independently of the fuselage, falling from the sky and splashing into the river on Thursday, not long after the tourist flight had taken off from a popular heliport at the tip of Manhattan.