New York Helicopter has plied the skies round New York Metropolis landmarks for many years. However the firm had some difficulties earlier than one in every of its sightseeing choppers plummeted into the Hudson River this week, killing all six individuals aboard.
There was a shut name in 2013, when one other helicopter abruptly misplaced energy in midair and the pilot maneuvered it to a secure touchdown on pontoons within the Hudson.
And within the final eight years, the corporate has been by a chapter and faces ongoing lawsuits over alleged money owed.
This January, it was sued for over $1.4 million by an organization that it had stopped paying a lease on for a chopper.
A cash-advance lender sued in February, saying the corporate had blocked repayments on a weeks-old mortgage and owed over $83,000. New York Helicopter hasn’t but filed a response in both case.
Telephones rang unanswered on the firm’s places of work Friday. A message in search of remark was left at proprietor Michael Roth’s residence, the place somebody who answered the telephone Thursday night time advised The Related Press that Roth wasn’t commenting. He had advised the New York Publish he was bewildered and devastated by the crash.
“That is horrific,” the newspaper quoted Roth as saying. “However you gotta keep in mind one thing: These are machines, and so they break.”
Based within the Nineties, Roth’s enterprise, which additionally has been recognized by names together with New York Helicopter Constitution Inc. and New York Helicopter Excursions LLC, presents vacationers a fowl’s-eye view of the Statue of Liberty, Central Park and the Manhattan skyline. Certainly one of few corporations with a license permitting it to fly near main New York Metropolis landmarks, it additionally presents shuttles to airports and constitution flights for executives and others.
The airspace round Manhattan is busy, tough and generally lethal. Extra greater than three dozen individuals have perished in tour and different helicopter crashes in New York Metropolis within the final half-century. Simply weeks in the past, a $90 million settlement ended a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by family members of one in every of 5 passengers killed in a 2018 sightseeing-helicopter crash operated by a distinct firm.
Mayor Eric Adams famous throughout TV interviews Friday that tens of 1000’s of flights a 12 months function safely from the decrease Manhattan heliport the place Thursday’s tour took off. Requested whether or not he had any particular considerations about New York Helicopter, he mentioned solely that investigators had been wanting into what occurred.
The Democratic mayor advised Fox 5/WNYW-TV he would not search to cease such flights: “Air journey is essential to this metropolis.”
New York Helicopter’s web site claims an “industry-leading security file,” but it surely hasn’t been totally with out dings. The Nationwide Transportation Security Board attributed the 2013 energy failure partly to an “improper upkeep determination” about an oil stress challenge.
Two years later, a New York Helicopter craft went right into a spin whereas hovering low off a helipad, touchdown arduous however safely with simply the pilot aboard. That point, the NTSB blamed an unknown one that had painted over a nasty half — marked as such — on a chopper that New York Helicopter had lately leased from somebody who had simply purchased it. The brand new proprietor suggested that the half had arrived with contemporary paint.
New York Helicopter hit monetary bother after New York Metropolis halved tour helicopter site visitors in 2017, in keeping with filings within the firm’s 2019 chapter case.
As flights had been lower down however Manhattan touchdown charges rose, the corporate noticed income fall from $4.5 million in 2017 to $3.9 million in 2018, in keeping with its chapter papers. New York Helicopter mentioned it slashed its employees from 30 workers to 13.
By 2019, it listed $6 million in belongings and $1.6 million in liabilities, together with a whole lot of 1000’s of {dollars} of debt for touchdown charges and restore payments.
The enterprise emerged from chapter in 2022 however apparently continued to face monetary headwinds.
Final June, the corporate filed a lawsuit over what it known as the “unconscionable” phrases of a 2018 mortgage it acquired from one other cash-advance lender. The helicopter firm dropped the case this month. It’s unclear from courtroom information whether or not there was any monetary or different settlement.
Messages had been despatched to attorneys who’ve represented the corporate.
This story was initially featured on Fortune.com
