The NTSB's 45-item factual docket for the April 10, 2025, Hudson River helicopter crash became public at 2 in the afternoon Thursday, while the agency still listed the investigation as ongoing and warned that its information was preliminary and subject to change [1][2].

The crash killed all six people aboard after the Bell 206L-4 broke into three major sections during an air tour, and the structures report records mixed Brant and Canada goose remains on the main rotor blades and horizontal stabilizer plus about 21 missing inches from one rotor-blade tip [3][4].

The Smithsonian laboratory examined 126 samples, including 53 from rotor blades, and found male and female Brant evidence establishing at least two Brant plus female Canada goose material on the helicopter's right side; however, the lab says that if bird impacts caused the accident, the initiating species depends on which section failed first, while Great Black-backed Gull remains may instead reflect flying debris during breakup [5].

AP noted an outside expert's bird-strike interpretation and a missing pulsing-light switch, but neither is an agency cause finding, and its count of 24 NTSB-investigated helicopter bird-strike crashes in 25 years, three fatal, supplies context rather than this crash's sequence; no final report or safety recommendation was available by cutoff [6][1].

No auditable same-day X post was recovered, so an instant-cause claim remains unverified and unobserved despite strong physical evidence; impact order, structural failure, operator practice and probable cause remain unfinished findings in an ongoing investigation.

-- MAYA CALLOWAY, New York