Low-flying tour helicopters buzzing above New York City are a common sight, but they might soon disappear if one congresswoman achieves her aim.

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, a Republican from New York, expressed her desire to limit or even cease these flights entirely after a tragic incident on Thursday claimed the lives of six people in a tour helicopter accident. This comes after a deadly crash in 2018, where a tour helicopter went down in the East River, resulting in the deaths of five passengers.

Malliotakis mentioned that the tour helicopters have long been a source of irritation for her Staten Island residents, and the recent accident has only exacerbated their concerns, especially as the helicopters often traverse over densely populated regions. The ill-fated sightseeing helicopter crashed into the water near the New Jersey shoreline, mere feet away from land.

“Staten Island residents remain deeply concerned about the frequent low-flying tour helicopters whose flight paths continue to frequently pass over their neighborhoods at all hours of the day,” Malliotakis said in a statement.

Thursday’s tragedy unfolded at around 3:15 p.m., when a Bell 206L-4 LongRanger IV chopper being operated by New York Helicopter Tours came apart and plummeted into the Hudson River.

Eyewitness video shows the body of the aircraft tumbling through the air and into the water upside down near the shoreline of Jersey City, New Jersey. The aircraft’s main and rear rotor appeared to have been detached and could be seen splashing into the water.

A cause of the crash has yet to be determined, as the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) confirmed they are looking into the deadly incident.

The victims included five members of the same family: Agustin Escobar; his wife, Merce Camprubi Montal; and their three children. The 36-year-old pilot also lost his life.

The helicopter from Thursday’s crash is seen floating after it plunged into the Hudson River near Lower Manhattan. (Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty Images)

It wasn’t the first tour helicopter to crash in the city.

In 2018, a Eurocopter AS350 B2 operated by Liberty Helicopters for FlyNYON crashed into the East River, resulting in the deaths of all five passengers while the pilot miraculously survived. 

The NTSB determined that a passenger’s harness tether inadvertently activated the fuel shutoff lever, leading to engine failure. The agency said that the water landing itself was survivable for the passengers, but the harness tether system prevented them from quickly escaping the ill-fated sinking aircraft.