UPDATE: |Hudson helicopter crash victims named as family of five including three children News

The aircraft is understood to have broken apart in mid-air in New York

The identities of the Spanish family who lost their lives in a horrific helicopter crash in New York have been revealed.

A major emergency services response was triggered in the American city after a sightseeing aircraft is understood to have broken apart in mid-air before crashing upside-down into the Hudson River on Thursday (April 10).

All those aboard the aircraft were killed, including the pilot and a family-of-five who were visiting New York for a holiday.

These have now been named as Agustín Escobar, his wife, Merce Camprubi Montal, and their three children.

Mr Escobar, was the president and CEO of Siemens in Spain, and his family were on a sightseeing trip after arriving in US, after landing from Barcelona earlier that day.

Haunting photos of the family posing for pictures on a helipad before the tragic incident have been released.

The images show the Spanish family beaming with smiles, while another image shows the family looking happy inside the Bell 206 aircraft which was later seen falling out of the sky and into the Hudson River.

The incident is one of the deadliest helicopter crashes in the city in nearly 20 years.

Following the tragedy, CEO of New York Helicopters, Michael Roth, said: “I’m absolutely devastated. The only thing I know by watching a video of the helicopter falling down, that the main rotor blades weren’t on the helicopter. And I haven’t seen anything like that in my 30 years being in business, in the helicopter business.”

The Mirror reports that the Escobar family had only arrived in New York City earlier on Thursday and made the sightseeing trip one of their first priorities.

But witnesses said they saw the chopper “split in half” before it went down near Pier 40, with one man reporting the stricken aircraft making what sounded like a “sonic boom.

It has not yet been established what caused the Bell 206 aircraft to plummet from the skies during the Escobars’ doomed tour.

Mr Escobar was the President and CEO of Siemens Spain, as well as the CEO of Siemens Mobility Southwest Europe — a position he had held since December 2022. The professional earned his degree in industrial engineering from Universidad Pontificia Comillas in Madrid and had more than 25 years of international experience in the energy and transportation sectors, leading teams across the United States, Latin America, and Spain.

The names of Escobar’s children have not been publicly released. The other person killed as a result of the crash was the pilot, whose name has also not yet been disclosed by authorities.

Following the disaster, President Donald Trump offered condolences to the victims’ families and friends. In his message on Truth Social, Mr Trump described the horror as a “terrible helicopter crash” and he said that the transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, and his staff were investigating it. The world leader, 78, also stressed “announcements as to exactly what took place, and how, will be made shortly.”