Brother of helicopter crash victim says 'it's hard not to seethe'

In his darkest moments, Iain Hill imagines the last moments of his brother's life, helplessly trapped in the wreckage of a tourist helicopter, sinking to his death in New York City's East River.

"That's the last thing he knew, being alone and scared in that helicopter by himself," Hill told ABC station WABC as his family broke their silence on the Sunday night crash that killed Tristan Hill and four other passengers.

Tristan Hill, 29, who was engaged to be married, had boarded the doomed flight as part of research he was doing for a guidebook company he started called Sightsy that details different experiences for tourists, his family said.

He was initially going to take his fiancee, Eda Ozmen, on the flight, but she stayed behind at the last minute so he could take a business associate, Daniel Thompson, his family said.

"It's devastating to me, man. I'm losing my best friend, one of my biggest role models," another brother, Brendan Hill, told WABC.

The helicopter trip, which was scheduled to last about 30 minutes, was an open-door photo shoot flight Liberty Helicopters offered customers, who wear heavy-duty harnesses and sit at the edge of the open door with the feet dangling outside the cockpit.

An Instagram video taken by another passenger, Trevor Cadigan, 26, as the flight lifted off from Kearny, New Jersey, shows Tristan Hill sitting in the rear of the chopper, smiling and giving a thumbs-up.

"Literally, everything had to go wrong for what happened to have happened. And sadly enough everything did," Brendan Hill said of his brother's doomed flight.

Iain Hill added, "We very much look forward to more information 'cause right now it's hard not to seethe."

The pilot, Richard Vance, 33, the only survivor of the crash, told New York Police Department investigators that a harness of one of the passengers somehow got wrapped around the fuel shut-off switch, accidentally cutting off the fuel supply to the helicopter and resulting in engine failure, multiple officials briefed on the investigation told ABC News.

NTSB investigators interviewed Vance today, but officials have yet to say what he told them. The agency also said today that investigators found no abnormalities with the helicopter's engine, or evidence of flight control failure and structural breakup before aircraft crashed into the water.

Vance radioed the LaGuardia International Airport air traffic control tower from an altitude of 2,000 feet requesting permission to enter the airport airspace, National Transportation Safety Board investigators said. Five minutes later at 7:08 p.m., Vance, radioed "Mayday! mayday! mayday!" and reported engine failure.

The pilot told investigators he first thought about setting the helicopter down in Central Park, but then changed his mind and headed for the East River. The red Eurocopter AS350 chopper was equipped with emergency pontoons on its skids that if deployed properly should have kept the aircraft afloat, investigators said.

Investigators are looking if the emergency pontoons failed to deploy properly and led to the helicopter tipping over and sinking.

The cause of the crash is still being investigated.

Besides Tristan Hill, Thompson and Cadigan, killed in the crash Carla Vallejos-Blanco, 29, of Argentina; and Brian McDaniel, 26, a firefighter from Dallas.

Brendan and Iain Hill of Dix Hills, New York, said their brother moved to New York from Reno, Nevada, about two years ago.

"He lived a life of a man who had no fear. And that's inspirational. I'm gonna try to emulate that from here on out," Brendan Hill said.

According to his LinkedIn page, Tristan Hill graduated from Missouri Valley College, where he played on the men's basketball team and earned a degree in business administration. While living in Reno, he founded and co-owned the Stamp Social Club, a lounge in the city's historic post office that serves cocktails from around the world. After graduating from college, he served as a research assistant for NATO in Belgium.

"He lived a life of a man well beyond his 80s and he did it in 29 years," Iain Hill said. "He brought people together, he stood for things he believed in and he worked hard. And that's good enough for me."

While Cadigan's parents were the first to file a lawsuit this week against the pilot, Liberty Helicopters and other operators, charging the defendants were negligent, the Hill family has yet to decide whether to take legal action.

"I'm having such a tough time letting him go," Brendan Hill of his brother. "It's surreal, I'm in a dream really hoping that I wake up soon, but I'm not asleep. This is my, my horrible reality."