The Hudson and East River class B exclusions are from the surface to 1100 (NY TAC). I do traffic watch flights in the area, although I generally stay SW of the City. I canceled todays morning flight because although it would have been legal, the ceiling did not leave much room to manuever, particularly over the hills in western NJ. With visibility 9 at the time of the accident though, I would look to the possible Mayday along with some witness accounts of a loud noise PRIOR to impact as possibly being more relevant. Then again we all know how unreliable witness accounts can be.
Other than the tragic loss of life, my next concern is the possible exploitation of this incident for political purposes. I already heard Congressman King was purportedly mouthing off about restricting GA in the area. Do we ban taxis every time one runs up on the sidewalk killing someone? Twits. Sorry I know this is the choir, so I wont preach.
Flyvmo
VFR mins btw, are that you operate no less than 500 below cloud, 1000 above and 3 miles vis in class echo, not 1000 below as mentioned earlier. Also note the exclusions are class G below 700', which would mean 1 mile vis and clear of clouds.