A woman and a child on a summertime boating trip were killed after their vessel capsized in the Hudson river off Manhattan.
The boat, which was reportedly overloaded, overturned at 2.45pm on Tuesday near Pier 86, officials said.
The accident left two others critically injured and a third person who was impacted is in stable condition, according to New York City fire department interim commissioner Laura Kavanagh.
The dead could not be immediately identified but officials said they were a 50-year-old woman and a seven-year-old boy who were fatally trapped inside the boat.
Twelve people were aboard the small jet boat called Stimulus Money, which had launched from New Jersey, when a large wake believed to have been caused by a passing ferry led the boat to flip.
Rescue operations were launched by the New York city police and fire departments as many victims were trapped beneath the capsized vessel, police officials said.
The cause of the accident was not immediately clear and was under investigation, Anthony Russo, commanding officer of the New York police department’s Harbor Unit, said at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon.
“We had the current, the wind, so you could have wakes approaching from different directions, waves from different directions,” he was quoted as saying by The New York Times.
“It takes some skill to operate in the Hudson River, so it could’ve been a contributing factor.”
Investigators said they will look at water conditions and the boat’s capacity to determine what went wrong.
“There’s a lot of commercial and recreational traffic during the day here. We also have a lot of people on Jet Skis, kayaks,” Mr Russo said.
The victims were from Colombia and were visiting family when they went on the summertime boating trip.
New York mayor Eric Adams said: “Our hearts go out to a group of people who were just using the water in our city... This is a devastating moment for them and those who are part of the families that were there.”
