Eagle Airways Beech Diverts to Gisborne

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Contact Photographer Tom Turner

What: Piper PA-32 registered to LCA Partnership in Fort Washington, Pa flying out of Teteboro Airport to Ocean City and a Liberty Helicopter Sightseeing Tour Eurocopter AS 350
Where: over the Hudson River between New York and Hoboken, New Jersey near West 14th Street
When: Sat Aug 8 2009
Who: Helicopter: 5 Italian tourists and a pilot;
plane: pilot and 2 passengers (including a child)
Why: The airplane flew into the helicopter. The impact (or rotors) severed off the plane’s wing. Both aircrafts are in the river. The helicopter is reported to have “dropped like a rock” when the aircrafts “clipped.”

All bodies have been recovered.

Though not necessarily considered directly responsible, two FAA employees (the plane’s air traffic controller and the ATC supervisor) have been put on administrative leave in connection with this crash. The ATC was engaged in inappropriate conversation, and the supervisor was not in the room as required.