Helicopter Company Behind Deadly Crash Fights FAA Over Ceasing Operations

Last week, we saw a tragic aviation accident in New York, as a sightseeing helicopter crashed into the Hudson River. All six people onboard, including the pilot and a family of five, lost their lives. As you’d expect, there’s a thorough investigation taking place into what caused this accident. There’s an update on that front, as it seems that the helicopter company isn’t being particularly cooperative…

Helicopter company fires executive after cooperating with FAA

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has announced that it has issued an emergency order, grounding New York Helicopter Charter, Inc., the company behind last week’s deadly crash. As you’d expect, the FAA wants to determine what caused this accident, and if there were any requirements the company wasn’t complying with.

But this is where it gets interesting. On April 13, 2025, the FAA reportedly reached out by phone to Jason Costello, the Director of Operations of NY Helicopter. The FAA requested that NY Helicopter voluntarily cease operations due to safety concerns, until the FAA and NTSB complete their investigation.

Costello agreed that NY Helicopter would cease operations as requested, and roughly 30 minutes later, Costello confirmed this in writing, via email.

However, 16 minutes after that email, Michael Roth, the Chief Executive Officer of NY Helicopter, communicated via email to the FAA that he didn’t authorize cessation of operations by NY Helicopter, and also that Costello was no longer an employee of NY Helicopter. Yes, all of that happened in the 16 minutes between when the two emails were sent.

With the company not voluntarily complying with the FAA, it’s now being forced to do so. Below you can find the full statement from the FAA.

The optics of this certainly aren’t great…

In fairness, we’ll need to wait for a full investigation in order to know what caused this accident. Obviously the question is whether this was a maintenance issue, pilot error, or something else. The circumstances surrounding this are strange, given that the rotor blades were fully detached from the fuselage and still spinning as the helicopter fell from the sky.

It seems perfectly reasonable for the FAA to suspend NY Helicopter’s right to operate, given that there are more questions than answers, and they at least consider it to be a real possibility that there might be some issues at the company. So far, NY Helicopter has released the following statement, which is on its website:

New York Helicopter Tours is profoundly saddened by the tragic accident and loss of life that occurred on April 10, 2025, involving one of our helicopters in the Hudson River. At New York Helicopter Tours, the safety and well-being of our passengers and crew has always been the cornerstone of our operations. Our immediate focus is supporting the families and their loved ones affected by this tragedy, as well as fully cooperating with the FAA and NTSB investigations. These agencies have asked us to respect the investigative process by referring all press inquiries to them for any further comment. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families.

Assuming the company believes it did everything right and that it had no fault in the accident, I can in theory understand the CEO’s unwillingness to shut down operations. It’ll likely be months before an investigation is completed, and most companies can’t just sustain losses by having zero revenue for an extended period of time, while still having certain fixed costs.

At the same time, this seems like a losing battle for the company to fight. When the FAA has decided that operations should be suspended, that’ll either be done voluntarily or involuntarily. One wonders what kind of a conversation went down in the 16 minutes between when the Director of Operations agreed in writing with the FAA to suspend operations, and the email from the CEO indicating the company wouldn’t comply.

Bottom line

The FAA has forced the company behind last week’s New York helicopter crash to cease operations, until the FAA and NTSB complete their investigation. Initially, the FAA tried to get the company to agree to this voluntarily, which the company’s Director of Operations agreed to.

However, within 16 minutes, the company’s CEO told the FAA that the company wouldn’t be complying, and that the Director of Operations had been fired. Go figure, the company was forced to shut down anyway.

What do you make of this NY Helicopter drama?