Briton dies and 3 hurt in New York helicopter crash

A BRITISH woman died when a helicopter crashed into New York's East River late last night. Three other passengers were hurt, two of them - also feared to be British - were fighting for their lives. One, a woman, is said to have suffered a cardiac arrest. A fourth passenger, a man, was described as "stable", while the pilot did not need hospital treatment. The private chopper plummeted into the East River just off Manhattan at around 3.30pm local time. Two passengers are thought to be Britons living in Portugal, and one survivor was named locally as 72-year-old Paul Nicholson. The other two passengers, one of whom is also thought to be British, live in Australia. Divers managed to pull the pilot and three passengers out alive. The dead woman's body was retrieved from the submerged wreckage an hour later.Witnesses saw the Bell 260 career out of control before it hit the water. It is thought the accident happened as it was taking off in cloud from the East River Heliport. Detective Martin Speechley, from the New York Police Department, said rescue efforts were hampered by poor visibility in the murky river. He said: "You really can't see more than a foot in front of your face. Most of the rescue effort would have been done by touch." Eyewitness Joy Garnett said: "It was obviously out of control. "The body spun around at least two or three times, and then it went down."Dan Sweeney, a manager at the nearby NYC Water Club, said on TV: "It went down pretty fast, you could see the splash, you could see the top of it and it just disappeared." New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said: "The passengers knew the pilot, they were all friends. "It was private helicopter from Linden, New Jersey." It is thought the pilot, named locally as Paul Dudley, the director of Linden Airport in New Jersey, had flown down to pick up the four from the helipad.