The pilot of the tour helicopter that crashed into New York City’s Hudson River warned that they were out of fuel just before the tragedy that killed all six on board.

Agustín Escobar, the president of the Spanish branch of the technology company Siemens, and his wife and three children died in the crash, the New York Times reported. The pilot is yet to be formally identified.

The tragedy took place at around 3:15pm on Thursday, closer to the New Jersey side of the Hudson River just off the tip of Lower Manhattan.

Calls to emergency services were received at approximately 3:17pm, just 17 minutes after it took off from downtown Manhattan.

Michael Roth, 71, who owns New York Helicopter which provided the tour and the chopper, said that the aircraft was out of fuel just minutes into their trip.

‘He [the pilot] called in that he was landing and that he needed fuel, and it should have taken him about three minutes to arrive, but 20 minutes later, he didn’t arrive,’ Roth told The Telegraph.