Three Dead After Two Helicopters Collide Midair Near Oregon Airport
A training helicopter and a tour aircraft came down in fields southeast of McMinnville on Thursday, and federal investigators are still trying to piece together how they ended up on a collision course.
Three people were killed Thursday afternoon when two helicopters collided in midair southeast of McMinnville, Oregon, sending both aircraft down into open fields about 40 miles southwest of Portland, authorities said.
The Yamhill County Sheriff's Office said the aircraft involved were a 1995 Robinson R22 and a 2018 Airbus AS350B3. The Airbus's sole occupant was identified as Tyler Delane Sturdevant, 38, of Newberg, Oregon. Oregon Public Broadcasting reported that the dead also included a student pilot aboard the Robinson.
One of the helicopters belonged to Jerry Trimble Helicopters, a flight training school based at McMinnville Municipal Airport. The company said it was cooperating fully with investigators. It was not immediately clear what the second aircraft, the Airbus, had been doing at the time of the collision.
Cause still unclear
The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are leading the investigation, and officials said Thursday it was too early to say what caused the aircraft to collide. ABC News reported that the wreckage came to rest in agricultural fields near the intersection of Highway 33 and Cruickshank Road, southeast of the city, while other accounts placed the debris field closer to Lafayette Highway and Southeast Stringtown Road — descriptions consistent with a collision that scattered debris over a wide area.
IT WAS TOO EARLY TO SAY WHAT CAUSED THE AIRCRAFT TO COLLIDE.
The Oregon Department of Transportation asked drivers to avoid the area around the crash site Thursday evening as emergency crews worked the scene. No injuries were reported on the ground, and no structures were damaged, according to local authorities.
McMinnville Municipal Airport is a busy general-aviation hub roughly 40 miles southwest of Portland, home to flight schools, private aircraft and the annual Erickson Aircraft Collection fly-ins. Midair collisions involving small aircraft and helicopters, while rare, tend to occur most often near airports where multiple aircraft are operating in close proximity at varying altitudes — precisely the kind of environment investigators will be scrutinizing as they reconstruct Thursday's flight paths.
The NTSB said a preliminary report on the crash is typically issued within several weeks, with a full determination of probable cause often taking a year or more.