A family of Spanish tourists, including three children, were killed in the crash, New York City Mayor Eric Adams says.

Six people, including three children, have been killed after a sightseeing helicopter crashed in New York City’s Hudson River, near Lower Manhattan, the city’s mayor has said.

All of those onboard the tourist sightseeing trip, the pilot and a family from Spain, died, including two who were taken to a hospital and later succumbed to their injuries.

“At this time, all six victims have been removed from the water. And sadly, all six victims have been pronounced deceased,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams told a briefing on Thursday.

The helicopter broke apart midair and crashed upside down into the river between Manhattan and the New Jersey waterfront. It was the latest high-profile aviation disaster in the US, following other recent accidents in Washington, DC, and Philadelphia.

New York Representative Grace Meng said on social media she was “devastated to learn about the deadly helicopter crash in the Hudson River”.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) identified the helicopter as a Bell 206, a model widely used in commercial and government aviation, including by sightseeing companies, TV news stations and police departments. It was initially developed for the US army before being adapted for other uses.

The National Transportation Safety Board said it would investigate.

News video of the crash site showed several emergency and police boats circling a patch of river where the helicopter was submerged.

The incident took place in the river off the Tribeca neighbourhood. New York police said residents should expect emergency vehicles and traffic delays in the surrounding areas.

The river is a busy shipping channel and is as deep as 60 metres (200 feet) at points.

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.

A medical transport plane killed seven people when it plummeted into a Philadelphia neighbourhood in January. That happened two days after an American Airlines jet and a military helicopter collided midair in Washington – the deadliest US air disaster in a generation.