NEW YORK (AP) — Divers using sonar searched Friday for key pieces of a sightseeing helicopter that broke apart in midair and plunged into the Hudson River between Manhattan and New Jersey.

All six people aboard were killed — a family of five from Spain and the pilot, a 36-year-old U.S. Navy veteran.

The main and rear rotors, main transmission, roof structure and tail structure were still missing a day after Thursday’s crash, National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said. Witnesses said they saw the main rotor detach and spin away.

Homendy said investigators had only just begun looking at the wreckage, flight logs and other material and would not speculate on the cause. The helicopter crashed around 3:15 p.m. Thursday, about 15 minutes after departing from a lower Manhattan heliport. It flew up the west side of Manhattan, turned around and was heading south when it plummeted upside down into a shallow stretch of the river near Jersey City, New Jersey.

Before takeoff, Agustin Escobar, his wife, Merce Camprubí Montal, and their three children — Victor, 4, Mercedes, 8, and Agustin, 10 — smiled in front of the helicopter in souvenir photos posted to the tour operator’s website.

Escobar, 49, an executive with the German conglomerate Siemens, had extended a business trip to the U.S. to sightsee and celebrate Mercedes’ 9th birthday, which would have been Friday, and his wife’s upcoming 40th birthday. Montal was an executive at Siemens Energy, a firm that had been a part of the conglomerate before being spun off.

The pilot was identified as Seankese Johnson.

He received his commercial pilot’s license in 2023, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, and had logged about 800 hours of flight time as of March, Homendy said.