Sean Johnson NYC helicopter pilot id as New York Helicopter tour pilot that crashed into Hudson river, killing family of 5 from Spain. Former Navy SEAL lived for adventure and had posted chilling video on Facebook last month. Was pilot error at fault?
The pilot of the ill fated helicopter that crashed into the Hudson River was a Navy SEAL veteran — who according to social media posted video of himself last month proudly flying in the same type of chopper that plummeted on Thursday while flying over Lower Manhattan.
‘When it all comes together…,’ Sean Johnson, 36, wrote on Facebook footage, which showed him in a Bell 206 helicopter March 27.
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Friends congratulated him in their comments, with one telling him he was ‘living the dream’ while another praised the pilot’s accomplishments.
Johnson had worked in television and as a bodyguard to celebrities before recently moved to NYC to continue his aviation career, Gothamist reported, citing his wife.
He was operating the doomed Bell 206 that plummeted into the Hudson river on Thursday as part of a sightseeing tour for a family of five from Barcelona, Spain.
It’s unclear if the chopper he was flying in the Facebook footage was the same helicopter he was operating this week when it crashed, killing the Navy SEAL pilot and the five Spanish tourists.
It took authorities an hour to recover his body because the wreckage was so mangled, law-enforcement sources said.
A Chicago native, Johnson most recently lived in Salem and Virginia and spent time in Montana, where he worked for two different helicopter companies, according to his Facebook page.
Last year, he worked through Montana’s fire season as a co-pilot for Billings Flying Service, which specializes in aerial firefighting and heavy equipment transportation.
Doomed pilot ‘always wanted to fly’
While in the Navy, he served as a SEAL and a gunner’s mate responsible for operating, maintaining and repairing weapons systems.
But he ‘always wanted to fly,’ his wife Kathryn Johnson told Gothamist.
‘ I’m just at loss for words,’ she said. ‘I don’t even know what happened.’
Johnson said she and her husband had been separated for the last few months but were still close and even spoke the day before Thursday’s tragedy.
Johnson and the family of tourists — Agustin Escobar, Siemens Spain CEO his wife, Mercè Camprubí Montal, and their children, Augustin, 10, Mercedes, 8, and Victor, 4 — were all killed when the helicopter they were in broke apart midair and plunged into the murky waters.
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People who knew Johnson flooded social media with condolences.
‘RIP Sean, I am proud to have known you,’ one person said in a Facebook comment. ‘Fair winds and following seas,’ said others, referencing a common Navy phrase.
Remi Adeleke, a former Navy SEAL from the Bronx, met Johnson when he was just a technician with dreams of being a pilot according to the nypost.
‘Sean stood out immediately – vibrant, humble, respectful, and hungry to learn,’ Adeleke wrote in an Instagram post Friday.
‘He died doing what he loved,’ he added. ‘And he died having achieved the dream he spoke about all those years ago in that SEAL Team workspace.’
Investigators have since begun to probe what caused the fatal crash, citing likely mechanical error leading to catastrophic engine failure along with excessive pilot manuevering which may have doomed the flight.
Also of disconcert are assertions that Johnson had called back to base shortly after taking off to say the craft was running out of fuel just moments after taking off (why remained unclear) and that he would be making an emergency landing in minutes. Except he never did.
