Divers returned to the Hudson River Monday to resume their search for bodies and wreckage, two days after a midair collision between a sightseeing helicopter and a small private plane killed nine people.
National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Debbie Hersman declined to speculate about the cause of the crash, the worst air disaster in New York City since a commercial jet crash in Queens killed 265 people in November 2001. The investigation is expected to take months.Divers recovered seven bodies over the weekend, one passenger on the plane and all six people aboard the helicopter. On Sunday, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers crane lifted the twisted wreckage of the helicopter from 30 feet of water near the New Jersey shore. A sonar scanner found the Piper Lancer nearby and more plane parts were found farther away under about 50 feet of water.
The prop plane carrying two brothers and a teenage boy crashed shortly before noon into the rear of a Eurocopter AS-350 that had set off on a 12-minute jaunt over Manhattan with five Italian tourists and Jeremy Clarke, a 32-year-old pilot.
The impact ripped off one of the Piper's wings and sent both aircraft plunging into the Hudson River, not far from the spot where US Airways pilot Chesley Sullenberger executed his successful water landing of Flight 1549 in January.
Neither craft in Saturday's crash was equipped with the data recorders installed on commercial planes. So investigators will closely examine eyewitness accounts and photographs of the crash to determine how it happened. Ms. Hersman said Sunday that evidence suggested that the helicopter, operated by New Jersey-based Liberty Helicopters, was gaining altitude when the collision occurred. That suggests the helicopter may have been flying in a blind spot for Steven Altman, the pilot of the Piper Lance and one of the brothers aboard.
But it doesn't explain the central question of federal investigators: Why weren't the two pilots aware of each other?
The pilots were operating under 1,100 feet in an area that typically isn't managed by air-traffic controllers. Pilots must rely on visual flight rules that are often referred to as "see and avoid."
They share a common radio frequency and are supposed to announce their location and intended path. Use of the radio frequency is voluntary, however, and it was unclear whether the two pilots involved in the crash had followed the guidelines.
A 2006 crash in Manhattan that killed New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle and his flight instructor led the Federal Aviation Administration to prohibit some private planes from flying along the East River. New York-area lawmakers said Sunday that tighter controls were also needed along the west side of the city. "I have long believed that virtually unregulated general aviation flight traffic over the Hudson River poses a serious safety and security risk," Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) said in a statement. "At the conclusion of this investigation, the FAA, along with the NTSB and other relevant agencies, must take a long look at toughening up flight restrictions and monitoring of the Hudson River airspace in order to avoid another tragedy."
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D., N.Y.) and other local lawmakers plan Monday to call for tougher oversight from the West 30th Street Heliport, from where the Liberty helicopter took off.
Ms. Hersman of the NTSB said the board would examine the safety of operations in New York and issue recommendations to FAA regulators if necessary. The FAA has yet to implement more than a dozen NTSB recommendations that are intended to bolster safety in the "on-demand" segment of aviation that includes tourist helicopters and charter planes.
FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said the agency will "be looking at all the issues involved in this accident to see if there's anything we need to change."
Among the victims onboard the Liberty helicopter, according to the Associated Press, were Michele Norelli, 51, and his son, Filippo Norelli, 16; Fabio Gallazzi, 49, his wife, Tiziana Pedroni, 44, and their son, Giacomo Gallazzi, 15. In the Piper were Mr. Altman, 60, of Pennsylvania, his brother Daniel Altman, and Daniel's son, Douglas Altman, 16.
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