FAA Grounds New York Heli Tour Operator

The FAA has issued an emergency order grounding the tour operator of a Bell 206L-4 LongRanger that crashed in the Hudson River days earlier, killing all six people on board.

FAA Acting Administrator Chris Rocheleau announced April 14 that the agency has suspended the air-carrier certificate of New York Helicopter Charter Inc., pending a review of its qualifications.

Rocheleau said the FAA acted in part because the company’s director of operations was summarily fired after voluntarily stopping flights.

The pilot and a family of five were killed April 10 when the single-engine turbine helicopter crashed into the Hudson River along the New Jersey shoreline. The passengers were identified in media reports as Siemens Rail Infrastructure CEO Agustin Escobar, his wife Merce Camprubi Montal, also a Siemens executive, and their three children. Seankese Johnson, a U.S. Navy veteran, was the pilot.

The sightseeing flight originated at the Downtown Manhattan Heliport at 2:59 p.m. local time and lasted 26 min., according to tracking site FlightAware. Operated by New York Helicopters as a Part 91 air tour, the helicopter, registered as N216MH, “rapidly descended” into the river near Jersey City, New Jersey, according to the NTSB. The FAA lists Meridian Helicopters, of Lafayette, Louisiana, as the aircraft owner.

Divers from the New York Police Department aided by side-scanning sonar initially recovered the helicopter’s main fuselage, the forward portion of the tail boom, the horizontal stabilizer finlets and the vertical fins, the safety board said. Divers worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Jersey City Office of Emergency Management to recover the main rotor and transmission, roof beam, and tail rotor system.

The LongRanger was not equipped with flight recorders, and “none of the helicopter avionics onboard recorded information that could be used for the investigation,” the NTSB said. Its last major inspection was on March 1. Before the accident flight, it had completed seven tour flights that day.

In an April 14 letter to New York Helicopter Charter CEO Michael Roth, the FAA said it has determined that an air safety emergency exists, requiring it to immediately suspend the company’s air-carrier certificate.

The agency said that it asked Director of Operations Jason Costello by telephone April 13 to stop operations until the FAA and NTSB complete their investigations of the crash, and that Costello later confirmed by email he had done so. Sixteen minutes after Costello’s email arrived, Roth informed the FAA by email that he did not authorize a cessation of operations, and that Costello was no longer an employee of New York Helicopter Charter.

“Due to proximity of the crash and the intentional firing of the director of operations resulting in the lack of sufficient qualified management and technical personnel to ensure the safety of its operations, the continued operations of NY Helicopters pose an unacceptable risk to safety in air commerce,” the FAA letter states.

The company faces a civil penalty of up to $17,062 a day if it fails to surrender its certificate, the FAA said.

In a statement on its website, New York Helicopter Tours said it is “profoundly saddened by the tragic accident and loss of life that occurred on April 10 involving one of our helicopters in the Hudson River. At New York Helicopter Tours, the safety and well-being of our passengers and crew has always been the cornerstone of our operations.”

The company said it is cooperating with the FAA and NTSB investigations and has been asked by those agencies to refer all press inquiries to them.

Airframe manufacturer Bell Textron and Rolls-Royce, manufacturer of the helicopter’s 250-C30P turboshaft engine, and the FAA are parties to the NTSB investigation. The safety board said it expects to issue a preliminary report within 30 days of the accident date.