Helicopter crashes into NYC's Hudson River after it ‘split in half’ mid-flight

A helicopter has crashed into the Hudson River, in New York.

At around 3.15pm Eastern Time today (April 10) the chopper went down, with a number of rescue boats pictured circling in close to Jersey City.

There have been no official reports about how many passengers were onboard the aircraft at the time, as well as the number of fatalities.

"It sounded like a sonic boom so I look up and literally I saw helicopter splitting in 2, with the rotor flying off in the sky it was going so fast and it just went straight into the water," one eye witness explained who heard the tragedy unfold, before seeing the aftermath.

"I've never seen anything like that in my life."

Videos posted on social media showed the aircraft mostly submerged, upside down in the water.

The fire department said it had units on scene performing rescue operations and video from the scene showed multiple rescue boats circling the aircraft.

The rescue craft were near a site close to the Manhattan waterfront, close to the end of a long maintenance pier for one of the ventilation towers for the Holland Tunnel.

Fire engines and other emergency vehicles were on the streets near the scene with their lights flashing.

The skies over Manhattan are routinely filled with planes and helicopters, both private recreational aircraft and commercial and tourist flights.

Manhattan has several helipads that whisk business executives and others to destinations throughout the metropolitan area.

Over the years, there have been multiple crashes, including a collision between a plane and a tourist helicopter over the Hudson River in 2009 that killed nine people and the 2018 crash of a charter helicopter offering 'open door' flights that went down into the East River, killing five people.

Earlier this year an an American Airlines-owned plane collided with a military chopper in Washington DC on January 29, in what was the US's deadliest aviation disaster since 2001, as all 67 people involved in the crash having died.

Two days after the fatal crash in the US capital, a medical jet that crashed in Philadelphia, killing all six people onboard.

Six days later (February 6), a plane with 10 people onboard went missing over Alaska, with the wreckage later discovered and all passengers confirmed dead.

While in Arizona on February 10, a private plane owned by Vince Neil crashed into another plane at Scottsdale Airport, Arizona, as it was arriving from Austin, Texas. Neil was not on board.

One week later (February 17), 80 people onboard a Delta Air Lines flight that crashed and flipped upside down in Toronto were safely evacuated.