Search resumes for six killed aboard plane, the unnamed pilot and a Spanish family with children age 11, five and four
The pilot of a sightseeing helicopter that crashed into New York’s Hudson River on Thursday killing all six people aboard reportedly sent a radio message moments earlier saying he was low on fuel and was heading back to the helipad, its operators said on Friday.
Michael Roth, the chief executive of New York Helicopter Tours, described how the pilot never made it back to the downtown Manhattan heliport it took off from about 16 minutes previously 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 told the UK outlet.
Hmm. Can helicopters backfire? Maybe bad things can happen when the fuel is nearly gone and the fuel / air mix is erratic. Strange forces in the transmission?
Transmission failure seems likely, but I’m faaaaaar from an expert.
Mast bumping.
I don’t think so. If you watch Blancolirio’s video you can see the transmission is still attached to the main rotor. That shouldn’t happen in a mast bump as I understand it.