They work in the dark and see everything, including things no one wants to see.
Divers from the NYPD Scuba Team recounted on Wednesday the four-day Hudson River salvage mission for the doomed tourist helicopter that broke apart in mid-air last week.
For the specialist police divers who scoured the murky depths for parts from the helicopter that took the lives of six, including three children, it was all hands on deck for the cops as they called in for the emergency. Suited up, they plunged into the muddy waters of the Hudson, unable to see with their eyes and forced to feel the surroundings for evidence.
“There is no visibility. All the diving we do is zero visibility. The Hudson River has a very muddy bottom. Most of the harbors here are wall mud and silt, so the visibility goes to zero very quickly as soon as you’re on the bottom because we’re in the mud, pushing the mud, searching — everything is by feel,” Sergeant Thomas McLaughlin said.
The crash into the Hudson made international headlines as the world wondered how such a catastrophic failure could have occurred. While theories range from maintenance issues to alleged misconduct on behalf of the tour company, all that mattered to first responders was trying to maintain life and the need to recover important evidence.
“We were able to get on scene and also communicate with FDNY and other NYPD vessels that were on scene to be able to direct us to the area where we needed to respond to. The initial dives were in the water ranging from about 35 minutes to about an hour, breaking up dives between weather and other conditions that we needed to deal with,” Detective Denis Eddy said.
While all those onboard the flight ultimately could not be saved, and the helicopter was pulled from the waters that night, the Scuba Team was tasked with spending the next four days searching for the remaining wreckage, including the main rotor.
The cops showed amNewYork the tools they used to help find debris.
The tech included sonar attached to the divers’ masks, a jackstay pattern line, a 75-foot rope with grappling hooks at each end attached to the divers as they search, and a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) used to send video back to the team.
The equipment, combined with assistance from the public, helped the team complete the grim task.
“After the accident occurred, there was video footage showing parts of the aircraft breaking up over the river. We were able to utilize some of that video footage to use landmarks that were in the background and ballpark where we wanted to start our search efforts. The vessels that we had out there, they also have side scan sonar, which is installed in the bottom of the vessels,” McLaughlin explained. “We started making passes in the area where we thought these items might be and what that side scan does, it will show up as there’s something big down there, such as a tail rotor or the main rotor section. Those objects will appear on the screen as an abnormality on the bottom.”
Debris from that tragic Thursday seen floating in the Hudson showed the humanity of the devastating crash, including a life preserver and a lone child’s shoe bobbing on the surface. The Scuba team had to collect everything investigators needed to determine what went wrong.
“All the equipment helps paint a broad picture,” Eddy said. “We recovered everything that needed to be recovered.”
According to the National Transportation Safety Board, all key components from the craft were recovered as of Monday, April 14.
“The evidence [was] taken to a secure location for further examination,” the NTSB said.
