In the United States, two helicopters collided in midair in Oregon, killing three people and closing a highway. Investigators carefully examined debris scattered across a field in the northwestern part of the state, officials said. UNN reports this, citing CNN.
Details
The crash killed 22-year-old Texas flight instructor Maddie Aasbo and 38-year-old Oregon pilot Tyler Sturdevant, as well as a student pilot from the United Kingdom, Yamhill County Sheriff Sam Elliott said during a press conference.
Aasbo was in one helicopter with the student pilot, while Sturdevant was the sole occupant of the other, the sheriff said.
The aircraft crashed onto a private agricultural field near McMinnville Municipal Airport, officials said. The red helicopter was left shattered into pieces, while the green helicopter lay upside down. McMinnville is southwest of Portland.
A section of nearby Highway 233 was closed because of the crash, the Oregon Department of Transportation said Thursday afternoon, offering no estimate for when it would reopen.
Leo Rodriguez said he called 911 after witnessing the crash while watching from his family vineyard.
"Suddenly I hear this loud rumble and this crunching of metal, I look up and just see these two helicopters had just collided in midair," he told KPTV.
"It took me a while for my brain to process what I was seeing. You don't see something like that every day. They twisted around and fell to the ground," the witness said.
The sheriff's office asked the public to avoid the area and "be patient while we respond to this critical incident."
The crash, which occurred at about 2:15 p.m. local time, is being investigated by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said, adding that it is also investigating the incident. Federal investigators were at the scene Thursday evening, October 29, according to the sheriff.
The two helicopters were a Robinson R-22, which was conducting a training flight, and an Airbus AS350, which was performing a maintenance flight, the NTSB said. One of the helicopters was operated by Jerry Trimble Helicopters, a helicopter flight-training school and rental service for private flights, the company said in a statement. The company added that it was cooperating with authorities in the investigation.
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