Hoisted into the air by a crane, the mock helicopter cabin swayed above the water in total silence. I sat inside, as tense as the four-point harness holding me in place. Then everything went dark. Wind from giant commercial fans roared toward us to replicate the downwash from a main rotor, water sprayed in from every angle, and we fell into a deep, barely lit indoor pool below, water suddenly pouring in from every opening. The fuselage began rotating upside-down as the operator, standing poolside with a remote control, drove the mechanized rotation ring that sent us spinning. I took a deep breath just before the water reached my neck. As water flooded my nasal cavity for at least the 12th time that day, I fought the urge to unhook my seatbelts and break for the surface. Trying to escape while the aircraft is spinning in the water is a sure way to disorient yourself and minimize your chance of survival.

So I waited an eternal 10 seconds until the movement ceased. Now sitting in an upside-down helicopter in 10 feet of water and in total darkness—you’re trained to close your eyes anyway, to prevent fuel or hydraulic fluid from getting in them and because visuals can be confusing in those conditions—I unhooked my harness, easily twisting the quick-release buckle, and scooted across two rows of seats to the other side of the fuselage. Using my memory and hands as guides, I searched for the lever that would unlock the window, allowing me to push it out and swim to the surface.

A helicopter crash-simulator operated by Survival Systems USA trains military and commercial helicopter crews to escape from a helicopter inverted in the water. The author participated in the training to gain insight into the passengers' experience during the East River crash. Eric Adams

By this point in the day, I had suffered through multiple variations of this exercise, first in shallow water cages and then this full simulation in the deep water, each time struggling to keep my cool, move methodically, and punch myself out. Still, panic began to set in as my body begged for oxygen and my hand groped about in vain.

I had come to this simulator, run by Survival Systems USA in Groton, Connecticut, to get a sense of what it might have been like in the water for the five passengers of the FlyNYON helicopter that crashed into New York City’s East River on March 11. I got the confusion, disorientation, and panic, but my experience was nothing like theirs. I had been trained. I had instructors inches away and safety divers floating nearby. I was in a warm pool, rather than frigid river water. And I wore a harness I easily undid when it was time to move.

During the progressively more challenging training, students learn to keep their composure and work methodically to escape from a sunken aircraft. Eric Adams

So my imagination filled the gaps between my simulator experience and their real life crash, a process made all the more chilling because I had been so close to their fate. As it happened, I was also flying with FlyNYON on the night of March 11, in a different helicopter but with the same group and at the same time.

In the hour leading up to our departure, I sat through the same preflight safety briefing as the victims. We exchanged easy, excited banter as we got ready to take our open-door, sunset photo flights. I wore the same harness they did, the kind that locked me to the aircraft via a thick tether but that didn’t have a quick-release buckle that untrained passengers might accidentally activate while leaning out to take photos.

Credit Eric Adams

Credit Eric Adams

I can now sense something of what the final moments would have been like for the victims aboard N350LH—the helicopter’s tail number—absent, of course, the reality. That is, the crushing realization that they weren’t going to make it out alive. Nothing can simulate that.

The Crash

The flight was supposed to be all fun and games—an exciting, doors-off, wind-in-your-hair helicopter ride above Manhattan that would yield gorgeous sunset images of the city. It’s a service that FlyNYON has offered for a few years now, and the dramatic aerial shots have become a staple for Instagrammers, many of whom function as unofficial ambassadors for the company.

Twice, the controllers asked him to repeat his transmission, to the point that a nearby pilot—mine, in fact—interjected: “He had an engine failure over the East River. That was a mayday, LaGuardia.”

FlyNYON had already provided closed-door aerial flights for tourists and charter flights for individual, professional photographers and video productions. It now adopted the hashtag #shoeselfie—used for fun shots of feet hanging out of the helicopter with the city below—as its signature take-home for the new swarms of amateur photographers going for the open-door upgrade. The new business model worked, and FlyNYON expanded operations to Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. It recently opened a sleek new terminal for its New York location.