A helicopter has crash landed onto the roof of the AXA Equitable Center, an iconic 54-story skyscraper in midtown Manhattan, New York. The city’s fire department has confirmed the pilot was killed.
The incident occurred atop 787 Seventh Avenue, not far from the Rockefeller Center and Times Square on Monday afternoon. Governor Andrew Cuomo addressed reporters at the scene explaining that a fire broke out when the helicopter hit the building.
CNBC reports Cuomo saying: "There was a helicopter that made a forced landing or an emergency landing ... on the roof of the building for one reason or the other. People in the building said they felt the building shake. It was a hard landing.”
Cuomo added that in the building itself, “nobody has been hurt.” Furthermore, videos and pictures posted on social media by passers by don’t seem to show any obvious damage to the building.
New York City Fire Department (FDNY) attended the incident, which happened at around 2pm ET. They said in a tweet that one person was injured in the crash.
The 54-story skyscraper is known as AXA Equitable Center and once housed the headquarters for AXA Financial, consisting of a number of subsidiaries of the French-based insurance and banking company AXA, such as AXA Equitable Life Insurance and Mutual of New York. It's currently home to tenants like BNP Paribas and Citibank.
