The pilot of the doomed helicopter that crashed into the Hudson River was a Navy veteran — and posted chilling video of himself last month proudly flying in the same type of chopper over Lower Manhattan.
“When it all comes together…,” Sean Johnson, 36, wrote next to the now-eerie Facebook footage, which showed him in a Bell 206 helicopter March 27.
Sean Johnson was piloting the helicopter that crashed into the Hudson River. He was killed along with the family of five who were his passengers. Facebook / Sean JohnsonFriends congratulated him in their comments, with one telling him he was “living the dream” and another praising his accomplishments over the past year.
Johnson had worked in television and as a bodyguard to celebrities before recently moved to New York City to continue his aviation career, Gothamist reported, citing his wife.
He was operating a doomed Bell 206 on Thursday as part of a sightseeing tour for a family of five from Barcelona.
Johnson flies the helicopter as one of the children killed sits next to him during the doomed flight. New York Helicopter Tours LLCIt’s unclear if the chopper he was flying in the Facebook footage was the same helicopter he was operating this week when it crashed, killing him and the five tourists.
It took authorities an hour to recover his body because the wreckage was so mangled, law-enforcement sources said.
A Chicago native, Johnson most recently lived in Salem and Virginia and spent time in Montana, where he worked for two different helicopter companies, according to his Facebook page.
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Last year, he worked through Montana’s fire season as a co-pilot for Billings Flying Service, which specializes in aerial firefighting and heavy equipment transportation.
Agustin Escobar, his wife, Mercè Camprubí Montal, and their 4-, 8- and 10-year-old kids were killed in the crash. New York Helicopter Tours LLCWhile in the Navy, he served as a gunner’s mate responsible for operating, maintaining and repairing weapons systems.
But he “always wanted to fly,” his wife Kathryn Johnson told Gothamist.
“ I’m just at loss for words,” she said. “I don’t even know what happened.”
Johnson said she and her husband had been separated for the last few months but were still close and even spoke the day before the tragic accident.
Her husband did not mention Thursday’s flight plans to his wife in the call, and she heard the heartbreaking news from a former colleague of his, she said.
The NYPD and the US Army Corps of Engineers lift the helicopter that crashed in the Hudson River in Jersey City, NJ, on April 10, 2025. Christopher SadowskiJohnson and the family of tourists — Agustin Escobar, his wife, Mercè Camprubí Montal, and their children, Augustin, 10, Mercedes, 8, and Victor, 4 — were all killed when the helicopter they were in broke apart midair and plunged into the murky waters.
People who knew Johnson flooded social media with condolences.
“RIP Sean, I am proud to have known you,” one person said in a Facebook comment. “Fair winds and following seas,” said others, referencing a common Navy phrase.
Remi Adeleke, a former Navy SEAL from the Bronx, met Johnson when he was just a technician with dreams of being a pilot.
“Sean stood out immediately – vibrant, humble, respectful, and hungry to learn,” Adeleke wrote in an Instagram post Friday.
“He died doing what he loved,” he added. “And he died having achieved the dream he spoke about all those years ago in that SEAL Team workspace.”
–Additional reporting by Joe Marino
