Helicopter Was Flying Back to Base to Refuel Before Crashing Into Hudson River

The helicopter that crashed into the Hudson River Thursday afternoon -- killing all six passengers -- was en route to its base to refuel, the tour company's CEO revealed.

New York Helicopter Tour CEO Michael Roth told the Telegraph the pilot, whose identity remains unknown, confirmed they were heading back to base for gas, adding ... "It should have taken him about three minutes to arrive, but 20 minutes later, he didn’t arrive."

The chopper plummeted into the Hudson just off Jersey City, N.J. at 3:15 PM local time. Though a rescue mission commenced immediately, no survivors were pulled from the craft.

In addition to the pilot, a Spanish family of five lost their lives: technology company Siemens executive Agustín Escobar, his wife Merce Camprubi Montal, and their three young children.

Spanish newspaper El Diario reported the family was celebrating the birthday of one of their children when the flight went down.

Heart-wrenching final photos of the family alive show them smiling in front of and inside the chopper before it took flight.

A cause of the crash has not been confirmed, but eyewitness accounts say the Bell 206 aircraft was seen falling apart before it hit the water. One video shows what appears to be a rotor blade freefalling separately from the aircraft.

Roth confirmed in a statement to the Post that "the main rotor blades weren’t on the helicopter" when it fell from the sky, adding that he is "devastated" by the accident.

Explaining the shock ofthe situation, he noted ... "I haven’t seen anything like that in my 30 years being in business, in the helicopter business. The only thing I could guess – I got no clue – is that it either had a bird strike or the main rotor blades failed. I have no clue. I don’t know."