Federal investigators in Oregon will work to determine why a helicopter on a test flight collided with another chopper flown by a young instructor and her student, killing all three people aboard both aircraft.
The National Transportation Safety Board said Friday morning that its team was on its way to examine the wreckage near the airport in McMinnville, about an hour's drive southwest of Portland. The town lies in the broad, flat Willamette Valley near the foothills of the Coast Range, in the heart of Oregon's wine country.
The crash happened around 2 p.m. Thursday on a cloudy day. Law enforcement photos showed a crumpled red helicopter laying in a farm field, while a green helicopter came to rest upside down.
Leo Rodriguez was working on a nearby barn roof at his family’s winery when the helicopters collided.
"There was an explosion mid-air," he told KPTV. "I bent over to do something and then, boom, and I look up and the planes were already going down."
Rodriguez said the tail end of the larger helicopter was struck, then it turned and began going toward the ground. He said the other helicopter fell straight down.
“It just happened so fast,” he said.
Few details are immediately available about why the smaller Robinson R22 helicopter collided with the Airbus AS350B3 helicopter that the NTSB said was on a maintenance flight that is typically done after maintenance or repair. The Robinson was on an instructional flight.
The victims included 38-year-old Tyler Sturdevant, a pilot from Oregon, 22-year-old Maddie Aasbo, a flight instructor from Texas, and a 31-year-old student pilot from the United Kingdom, whose name has not been released, Yamhill County Sheriff Sam Elliott said during a news conference. Aasbo and the British student pilot were on the Robinson helicopter, while Sturdevant was on the Airbus.
The owners of the two helicopters — Jerry Trimble Helicopters and Precision — both said they are cooperating with authorities on the investigation while trying to help the grieving families of the victims.
Precision, a helicopter charter and maintenance company that also helps fly drone missions for the military, said in a post on Instagram that Sturdevant was their “beloved” senior pilot.
“Tyler has touched countless lives, not only through his love of flying, but through the many pilots he mentored, encouraged, and helped along the way,” Precision posted. “His legacy lives on in every pilot he helped bring up and every life he made a difference in.”
His LinkedIn page says he worked as a pilot examiner for the Federal Aviation Administration for the past four years while continuing to work at Precision for more than 20 years.
The Jerry Trimble school offers everything from demo flights for first-time flyers to advanced training.
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Associated Press writers Jamie Stengle in Dallas and Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed.