KIPS BAY — The National Transportation Safety Board has come close to ruling out engine failure as a possible cause of the helicopter crash that killed a tourist visiting New York City.
Sonia Marra, who was visiting from Australia to celebrate her 40th birthday, died in the crash. Marra’s partner, Harriet Tamaki, 43, and her mother, Harriet Nicholson, 60, remain in critical condition at Bellevue Hospital.
Her father, Paul Nicholson, 72, and the pilot, Paul Dudley, 56, both came out of the crash relatively unscathed.
NTSB investigators arrived on the scene on Tuesday night and began their investigation.
NTSB Board Member Mark Rosekind said Thursday his team had examined a portion of the engine that consists of a plug with a magnet attached to it.
The purpose of the plug is to identify possible engine ruptures, and the part is a common component in most engines, Rosekind said.
If a rupture occurs within the engine, pieces of metal usually break off, Rosekind said. The magnet on the plug attracts metal pieces. When investigators remove that plug, the presence of metal pieces alerts them to some problem within the engine.
But Rosekind said when his team removed the plug, it was free of metal pieces. That, Rosekind said, is a good indication that engine failure is not to blame for the accident.
On Friday, the engine will be removed and shipped to an overhaul facility, where its individual pieces will be more thoroughly analyzed, he added.
Sources have suggested that weight may have played a role in the accident, and Rosekind said that his team was in the process of weighing the empty aircraft. That figure will be analyzed along with the fuel weight and the weight of the passengers and any cargo to determine if the aircraft was too heavy to take its ill-fated flight.
In a previous briefing, Rosekind said that the maximum gross weight of the helicopter is 3,200 pounds.
The NTSB crew interviewed the pilot relatively soon after they arrived on the scene and gleaned some basic information, but Rosekind said his investigators are re-interviewing Dudley.
Rosekind said the interview was still going Thursday afternoon, and had been for more than three hours.
Rosekind said the purpose of the second interview was to obtain a more thorough understanding of the pilot’s actions and his background. Dudley was being asked about his flight experience, where he trained, whether he did a weight check before the flight, if he conducted a safety briefing prior to takeoff, what happened during the accident.
Investigators are also asking how Dudley responded and how the passengers reacted.
Rosekind said the NTSB investigators would remain in New York through most of the weekend. The agency will issue a preliminary report on the accident on Wednesday, Oct. 12.
