Six Victims In Fatal Crash Near Jersey City, Mayor Opens Conversation On Tourist Helicopter Concerns

Photo courtesy Archil Srivastava via NJ.com.

Jersey City and New York residents are flooding social media with prayers and somber thoughts after confirmation of a helicopter crash that left six people dead in the Hudson River Thursday afternoon.

Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop reportedly confirmed three adults and three children were all onboard and victims of the fatal crash. One of the adults was the pilot while two of them were parents of the three children; this was a family of five from Spain. He further added that helicopter tours in the area are constant and busy, making it heavily trafficked.

“Hopefully this brings some more attention to it, that the fact beyond just noise, you have real safety concerns,” Fulop said.

Helicopter tours are commonly advertised in Jersey City and New York, who are separated just by the Hudson River. These tourist activities are advertised through Groupon and Viator, which even has a “Top New Jersey Helicopter Tours” page.

But on different social media threads of this breaking news, locals express their longtime concerns about the helicopter rides.

“Thoughts and prayers for pilot and passengers but they need to seriously ban all the non essential helicopter flights for tourism or commutes. They are super loud fly to low and affect quality of life for the residents houses they fly over. Hope no one got hurt but this why people started stopthechop campaign. Safety,” wrote a Reddit user.

“Those poor passengers. Maybe now people will understand why we are all so uncomfortable with how low those helicopters fly over the Heights all the time,” said a user in Facebook group “JC Heights United.”

News spread about the tragedy in less than 30 minutes of it happening with many people who live or were near the waterfront, which is between New Jersey and New York, describing what they heard on different social media platforms like Reddit, Facebook and on live news. 

“Omg I saw it too through my window! It was so loud I thought it was thunder and then I saw a helicopter going down the river!!” wrote one Reddit user.

A video posted on X shows the helicopter flipped upside down and different images are circulating around social media showing it in broken parts. It reportedly fell on the New Jersey side of the water.

There is reportedly a “two-mile safety zone” around the Holland Tunnel extending across the entire river.

According to NJ.com, police and fire departments from Hoboken and Jersey City were called to the scene with fireboats to help. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating with New Jersey State Police also on the scene.

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