A second woman has died from injuries suffered in last week’s East River helicopter crash, sources said yesterday.
Helen Tamaki, 43, died Tuesday at Bellevue Hospital of complications caused by a lack of oxygen to her brain after she nearly drowned in the tragedy.
Tamaki’s partner, Sonia Marra, 40, was found dead in the wreckage of the Oct. 4 crash.
They were celebrating Marra’s 40th birthday on a flight with Marra’s parents that was piloted by their friend Paul Dudley when the chopper crashed.
NTSB probers are months away from determining the cause.
Dudley reported that the aircraft yawed to the left just after it took off from the East 34th Street Heliport — a sign its rotor had lost its effectiveness.
And that could have been caused by uneven distribution of his passengers’ weight in the cabin, said Marc Moller, an aviation lawyer with the Manhattan firm Kreindler & Kreindler.
Although the NTSB has not reported finding any mechanical problems, they can’t be ruled out, said Bill Waldock of Embry-Riddle Aviation University.