Two helicopters crashed midair in New Jersey on Sunday, killing one individual and critically injuring one other, authorities say.
Hammonton Police Chief Kevin Friel stated rescuers responded to a report of an aviation crash at about 11:25 a.m. Video from the scene reveals a helicopter spinning quickly to the bottom. Police and hearth crews subsequently extinguished flames that engulfed one of many helicopters.
The Federal Aviation Administration described the crash as a midair collision between an Enstrom F-28A helicopter and Enstrom 280C helicopter over Hammonton Municipal Airport. Solely the pilots have been on board every plane.
One individual was killed and one other was transported to a hospital with life-threatening accidents.
Hammonton is a city of about 15,000 folks situated in Atlantic County within the southern a part of New Jersey, about 35 miles (56 kilometers) southeast of Philadelphia. The city has a historical past of agriculture and is situated close to the Pine Barrens, a forested wilderness space that covers greater than 1 million acres (405,000 hectares).
The FAA and Nationwide Transportation Security Board will likely be investigating the crash, Friel stated.
Investigators will probably first look to overview any communications between the 2 pilots and whether or not they have been in a position to see one another, stated Alan Diehl, a former crash investigator for the FAA and NTSB.
“Virtually all midair collisions are a failure to what they call ‘see and avoid,’” Diehl stated. “Clearly they’ll be looking at the out-of-cockpit views of the two aircraft and seeing if one pilot was approaching from the blind side.”
Though it was largely cloudy on the time of the crash, winds have been gentle and visibility was good, in keeping with the climate forecasting firm AccuWeather.
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