Woman, 7-Year-Old Boy Killed After Boat Capsizes on NYC's Hudson River

A woman and a young boy were killed and several others were injured Tuesday after a boat capsized on the Hudson River, authorities said.

The tragedy occurred when a chartered private boat carrying 12 people overturned, sending all the passengers into the water. Victims were trapped under the boat after it flipped over, the NYPD said in a press conference Tuesday.

The boat’s owner had been traveling behind the vessel on a jet ski when the boat capsized, officials also said.

Two nearby ferries rushed to the scene to help passengers, according to a tweet from ferry operator NY Waterway, along with police and fire department first responders.

Multiple victims were critically injured, officials said.

The identities of the two people who died were confirmed to NBC News as Lindelia Vasquez, 47, and Julian Vasquez, 7. It is unclear how they were related, but they were not mother and son, officials said.

The cause of the accident is currently being investigated, Inspector Anthony Russo of the NYPD Harbor Unit told reporters.

He added more generally that the Hudson River is “always a dangerous place to operate.”

“There’s a lot of recreational and commercial traffic during the day here,” he said. “We also have a lot of people on jet skis, kayaks. We had the current, the wind, so you could have wakes approaching from different directions, waves from different directions. It takes some skill to operate in the Hudson River.”