In a city where buzzing choppers are part of the everyday skyline, no one expected to see one spiraling out of control. But that’s exactly what happened. Shocked witnesses described the helicopter breaking apart mid-air before crashing into the Hudson River near Pier 40.

One described a horrifying scene, saying they saw the tourist helicopter “split in half” before crashing near Pier 40. One man reported that the doomed aircraft made a noise that sounded like a “sonic boom.”

”The helicopter was a little bit like nose down, slightly, and I saw the propeller separating from the helicopter. It kept spinning in the air alone. Nothing was attached to it,” witness Sarah Jane Raymond Ryer told CBS.

The aircraft, operated by local tour company New York Helicopter