Officials are bringing the brother of one of the victims of the Hudson River helicopter crash to identify her as well as her husband and children.
According to the New York Post, Steven Fulop, the mayor of Jersey City, N.J., said that Mercè Camprubí Montal’s brother Joan Camprubí Montal flew in from Spain on Friday, April 11, to help officials identify his sister’s body.
Joan would also be helping to identify the bodies of his sister’s husband, Agustín Escobar, chief executive of Siemens’ rail infrastructure division in Spain, and their three young children. Mercè also worked for Siemens.
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“There is still quite a bit of a process to go through now,” Fulop told the Post on Saturday, April 12. “The family member may have to ID the bodies and they still have to arrange transport back to Spain. The Spanish consulate is involved, and Siemens has people working on this.”
The Hudson County Medical Examiner’s office in New Jersey is currently still examining the bodies of all six victims, the mayor added.
“They still have to figure out the cause of death, was it from drowning or was it from the propeller? Right now we’re all waiting to hear what the NTSB has to say,” Fulop said.
During a visit to the site of the crash on Saturday, Joan spoke to reporters and vowed to “never forget” his family members, per the Post.
“We will never forget you,” he said in Spanish after reciting all five of their names. “We will keep your smile alive every day of our lives, and I believe that’s the best legacy we can give you.”
“This is a really difficult situation, but we are overwhelmed by the massive condolences we’ve received,” Joan added, per the Post. “I want to say they left together, they left without suffering, and they left with a smile on their faces, and that is important to us.”
The fatal helicopter crash occurred on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River near New York City around 3:15 p.m. local time on Thursday, April 10, shortly after the helicopter — which belonged to the sightseeing company New York Helicopters — took off from downtown N.Y.C. All six people onboard the craft, including the pilot, died.
Officials previously confirmed that Escobar, Mercè and their three children — who were all under 11 years old, Fulop previously shared — had traveled to the U.S. for Escobar to take a business trip. The family of five then decided to extend their trip to celebrate Mercè’s birthday.
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New York City Mayor Eric Adams also previously said that one of the children was set to turn 8 the day after the crash.
“So this is probably part of a normal tourist attraction of seeing the city from the skyline. But it’s just a real unfortunate situation and our heart goes out to the family members,” Adams told Fox 5’s Good Day New York.
The Federal Aviation Administration, which is investigating the crash alongside the National Transportation Safety Board, said the aircraft was a Bell 206 helicopter.
Though authorities have not yet shared exactly what caused the crash, New York Helicopters CEO Michael Roth told The Telegraph that the pilot of the aircraft radioed base to say he was returning to the helipad to get more fuel shortly before the crash.
“He called in that he was landing and that he needed fuel, and it should have taken him about three minutes to arrive, but 20 minutes later, he didn’t arrive,” Roth said.
“Every employee in our company is devastated. My wife has not stopped crying,” he added. “The death of the child of any human being, is a monumental disaster.”
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The post Brother of Woman Who Died in N.Y.C. Helicopter Crash Flies to U.S. to Identify Bodies, Vows to ‘Never Forget’ His Family Members appeared first on People.
