The 2009 Hudson River mid-air collision was a flight accident that occurred on August 8, 2009, at 11:56 a.m. (15:56 UTC), in which nine people died when a tour helicopter and a small private airplane collided over the Hudson River near Frank Sinatra Park in Hoboken, New Jersey.
The aircraft were in an area known as the "Hudson River VFR Corridor", which extends from the surface of the river to altitudes of 800 to 1,500 feet (240 to 460 m) at various locations along the Hudson River in the immediate area of New York City. Within this corridor, aircraft operate under visual flight rules, under which the responsibility to see and avoid other air traffic rests with the individual pilots rather than with the air traffic controller.
Because of the heavy commercial air traffic into Newark, LaGuardia, and Kennedy airports, small aircraft are restricted from much of the airspace around the city. Many airplanes that need to transit the New York metro area use the VFR corridor as an alternative to going east of the city (over water) or west (toward Pennsylvania). The corridor is also heavily used by helicopter tour companies, which take passengers on sight-seeing tours of the New York skyline. Visual flight rules on the river corridors by Manhattan have been subject to considerable debate since the 2006 New York City plane crash, in which New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle crashed into an apartment building while flying using visual flight rules on the East River. This was the first aircraft collision over the Hudson River since 1976.
The collision, which occurred opposite Manhattan's 14th Street, was about 40 blocks south of where US Airways Flight 1549 ditched in the Hudson River on January 15, 2009, with no loss of life, after the plane suffered a complete loss of thrust following a bird strike.