First pic of smiling birthday girl, 8, and pilot in NYC helicopter crash taken just mins before whole family was killed
A TRAGIC picture of the smiling birthday girl who died in the Hudson River helicopter crash alongside her family has been revealed.
It is the first image of the eight-year-old sat next to the pilot onboard the doomed aircraft before it plunged into the water just 16 minutes later.
The child due to turn nine on Friday with the family said to have hired the chopper to celebrate her birthday, according to Catalan radio station RAC1.
Dad Agustin Escobar, his wife Merce Camprubi Montal and their three children – aged four to 11 – all died along with the pilot on Thursday afternoon.
A heartbreaking set of final pictures also showed the whole family posing on the doomed New York aircraft minutes before their tragic deaths.
The gut-wrenching photos, published on the New York Helicopter Tours website, show the family smiling as they posed in front the doomed Bell 206L-4 LongRanger IV.
They were all seen strapped inside the aircraft preparing for a luxury sightseeing tour over Manhattan.
But tragedy struck around 3.15 pm, when the helicopter reportedly broke apart midair and dropped into the Hudson, killing four people on impact.
Two others were later pronounced dead at the hospital.
A harrowing warning was made by the pilot just moments before the terrifying crash.
Michael Roth, the owner of the helicopter, told The Telegraph: “He [the pilot] called in that he was landing and that he needed fuel.
“It should have taken him about three minutes to arrive, but 20 minutes later, he didn’t arrive.”
The chopper was later captured on video completely upside down in the Hudson River as New York Police Department boats rushed to the wreckage.
Shaken witnesses who saw the crash unfold described hearing what sounded like a gunshot as the helicopter started to plummet towards the water.
Dani Horbiak said she was at her home in Jersey City when a noise that sounded like “several gunshots in a row, almost, in the air” rang out.
The cause of the horror plunge is yet to be confirmed.
An aviation expert told The Sun it may have been caused by a single missing or faulty bolt onboard commonly known as the “Jesus nut”.
Julian Bray suggested the critical component, which holds the rotor system in place, may have failed mid-flight and led to the six deaths.
A lacking or faulty nut, he said, could have caused the chopper blades to detach while still spinning and slice through the aircraft before it plunged into the water.
What is a ‘Jesus nut’?
If this nut fails mid-flight, the rotor can detach, leading to catastrophic consequences.
The term is believed to have originated during the Vietnam War, reflecting the dire situation a crew would face if the nut failed: their only recourse would be to “pray to Jesus.”
The Jesus nut is meticulously inspected before every flight, and failures are exceedingly rare.
However, its importance cannot be overstated; it’s a single point of failure that holds the entire rotor system in place.
In broader engineering contexts, “Jesus nut” has come to describe any component whose failure would result in the total collapse of a system.
The Spanish family had landed in New York just hours earlier, having flown in from Barcelona to kick off their vacation.
Escobar, a 25-year veteran of the international tech and mobility scene, had held top positions across the globe — including Spain, South America, and the U.S.
Most recently, he was appointed Global CEO of Rail Infrastructure at Siemens Mobility in October.
His wife, Merce Camprubi Montal, also had an impressive career.
She worked as a global commercialization manager at Siemens Energy in Barcelona for seven years, according to her LinkedIn profile.
The Spanish mum was reportedly related to two former Barcelona FC presidents, including one who brought Johan Cruyff to the club.
Montal was the great-granddaughter of Augusti Montal Galobart, Barcelona’s president from 1946 to 1952, and the granddaughter of Augusti Montal Costa, who was in charge of the Catalan club from 1969 to 1977.