NTSB hopes to recover some flight data from fatal helicopter crash in Manhattan
Authorities expect the investigation into the cause of the crash will take 18-24 months; Bryan Llenas reports from New York City.
The helicopter pilot who died when his craft crash-landed atop a New York City high-rise on Monday was not licensed to be in the air during bad weather, officials said.
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations require pilots to have an instrument rating when flying through poor weather conditions and pilot Timothy McCormack did not have that rating, FAA officials told Fox News on Tuesday.
Since the 58-year-old veteran pilot, a former volunteer fire chief in northern New York state, did not have an instrument rating, he was not qualified to fly through rain that enveloped Manhattan on Monday, officials said.
McCormack was the only fatality reported from the crash on top of the 750-foot AXA Equitable building in Midtown Manhattan. The crash occurred about 11 minutes after he’d taken off from a heliport along the East River, a little more than a mile away, according to the New York City Police Department. The building at 787 Seventh Avenue did not a helipad on the roof, authorities said.
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Doug Brazy, an investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), told reporters on Tuesday the agency is still working on pinpointing what caused the crash, but would not speculate. He said a fire after the crash consumed much of the wreckage, and investigators are trying to ID whatever could be salvaged.
“We have much more work to do before this investigation is complete,” he said, adding that a preliminary report would be released in about two weeks. He said the report would not include the cause of the crash.
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It was not immediately clear what caused the crash, or why McCormack was flying the Augusta A109E in a driving downpour with a low cloud cover.
The airspace around Manhattan is tightly controlled; a flight restriction is in effect since President Trump took office, banning flights below 3,000 feet within a mile of Trump Tower.
A dramatic video circulating on social media shows a helicopter flying erratically over the East River. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio appeared to confirm that that helicopter was the same aircraft piloted by McCormack.
He told CNN authorities need to find out more about the pilot at the time he decided to take off.
A spokesman for the NTSB told Fox News earlier Tuesday that it would not be able to confirm if the craft in the video was, in fact, the one that crashed. Brazy said he has not seen the video but officials suspect it was the chopper that came down.
Brazy told reporters that McCormack had flown a previous flight with one passenger before it departed from the helipad on the East River. He said investigators have spoken to the passenger in that flight as part of their probe.
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FAA records show that McCormack was a certified instructor and commercial helicopter pilot, but that air traffic controllers did not handle his flight, FAA officials told Fox News.
