“It could be something personal, it could have been something that influenced his psyche or, you know, substances,” de Blasio told CNN on Monday. But nothing is known yet. He considers a technical defect to be unlikely.
A person had died in the accident, there is little doubt that he was the pilot. The pictures showed rubble of the completely destroyed helicopter. It is investigated whether the pilot tried to make an emergency landing on the roof of the skyscraper. After the crash, a fire broke out, but the fire brigade was able to extinguish it quickly. Hundreds of rescue workers were on duty. At the time of the crash, the clouds were so low over Manhattan that the tops of the skyscrapers could not be seen. According to the FAA, only the pilot was on board.
The accident had put the New York emergency services and citizens on high alert because many felt reminded of the 9/11 attacks. Almost 3,000 people died in the attack by Islamist terrorists on the World Trade Center in 2001.
Pilot is said to have been experienced
De Blasio said he saw a video circulating on the internet showing a helicopter flying erratically. According to his information, this helicopter was the machine that crashed onto the roof of an office building a short time later. “It looked like the pilot was acting very erratically. It just didn’t look like there was a mechanical problem on his route.” According to initial findings, the pilot was considered experienced. Mainly he flew business people. Even before the crash, he apparently had a flight where everything went normally.
The route taken by the helicopter was also strange. This had apparently made a U-turn on his way towards the southern tip of Manhattan and flew back over the center of the city. According to de Blasio, he would have needed a permit from La Guardia Airport for this, especially because the strictly sealed off Trump Tower is located there. “So far, and this is preliminary information, we have no evidence that this pilot has asked for permission.”
According to police, the helicopter crashed into the 54-story office building eleven minutes after taking off – within sight of Times Square. But no debris fell on the street. Why the pilot took off at all with the poor visibility and pouring rain is “the subject of the investigation”.
“We felt the impact”
The 59-year-old Nathan Hutton works in a bank in the affected high-rise. “We felt the impact,” he told reporters. “We felt when he (the helicopter) hit the building.” That was around 1:35 p.m. “We thought it was something like an earthquake.” An alarm went off two minutes later.
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The employees were asked to leave the building, but not take the elevators, said Hutton – he says he works on the 29th floor of the skyscraper. The people in the building had taken the fire escape to safety. They would have smelled smoke in the stairwell. “When we got into the lobby, we saw firefighters and police officers.” They strongly urged her to leave the building immediately.
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Trump tweeted about the helicopter crash in New York
US President Donald Trump announced on Twitter that he had been informed about the helicopter crash in New York. The President thanked the rescue workers for doing a “phenomenal job”. His government is ready to support.
In his brief statement, Cuomo was also asked about the attacks of September 11, 2001, when terrorists steered planes into the World Trade Center in New York, among other places. There is no evidence that it is a similar incident, said the governor.
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