Officials investigating what led to deadly disaster that killed 6
NEW YORK CITY (WABC) -- Local and federal investigators are rushing to find out what caused a tourist helicopter to crash in the Hudson River on Thursday, in order to prevent a similar tragedy from happening again.
The helicopter, a Bell 206, was on its sixth trip of the day when it went into the Hudson.
Video obtained by Eyewitness News shows the inside of the same helicopter that crashed, on the same tour, months before Thursday's tragedy. Footage shows what the passengers on board the helicopter would have seen taking off from the Wall Street Heliport.
The helicopter on Thursday looped around the Statue of Liberty and headed north.
Aircraft tracker FlightAware showed the exact route the doomed flight took after that.
The pilot headed north along the coast and turned around at the George Washington Bridge and then headed south down the Jersey coast.
It was only in the air about 15 minutes before plummeting into the Hudson River.
The chopper was operated by a local tour company called New York Helicopters.
The company's CEO told Eyewitness News, "We are devastated. My staff hasn't stopped crying since this afternoon. I am a father and a grandfather, and we are blown away."
The chopper was owned by an out-of-state company that sells refurbished choppers.
Shortly after the crash, the company scrubbed it's website, and it's social media pages and hasn't responded to calls or emails from Eyewitness News.
Aviation experts are now trying to figure out what went wrong, including our own.
The chopper was similar in size to NewsCopter 7.
"Where things don't make sense is the separation of parts of the aircraft," said NewsCopter 7 reporter John Del Giorno. "That video we see right there, that looks like the rotor blade came off the aircraft."
It's now up to federal investigators who are already on scene to figure out what went so terribly wrong, and why the chopper didn't land safely back on Wall Street like it should have.
Eyewitness News found one report filed with the FAA last September showing the chopper had a problem with metal in the transmission oil.
There aren't any reports publicly available showing what happened after that.
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