Harrowing video showed the doomed Big Apple sightseeing helicopter fall out of the sky into the Hudson River on Thursday as witnesses described the aircraft breaking apart in midair.
The tourist helicopter rapidly dropped into the chilly waters, causing a major splash around 3:20 p.m., video captured by a bystander and obtained by The Post shows.
The tail and rotors of the New York Helicopter appeared to break off before it plunged into the Hudson, killing everyone onboard, according to the footage and multiple witness accounts.
One bystander, Charles McSorley, said the rotors just “snapped right off.”
McSorley, 59, was walking from Jersey City into Hoboken when he spotted the helicopter flying nearby.
He then heard a boom and saw the rotors come apart.
“Looked like the propellers came straight off. And I saw it come straight down,” the loading dock manager said.
“And I just started walking fast towards Hoboken because it wasn’t far from the Hoboken train station.”
He said it sounded like the helicopter was “struggling all of a sudden.”
“But you could literally see that the propeller just snapped right off. You can see it snap off, and then it just came straight down.”
The pilot and a family of five Spanish tourists, including three children, aboard the chopper were pulled from the water. Four were pronounced dead at the scene and two succumbed to their injuries at the hospital.
The family was later identified as Agustin Escobar, his wife, Merce Camprubi Montal, 40, and their three children, Augustin, 10, Mercedes, 8, and Victor, 4, according to officials. The pilot was 36-year-old Navy SEAL veteran Sean Johnson,
