No distress call from helicopter before crash into SoCal home
UPDATE: 1/31/2018 12:14 p.m. A federal investigator says there was no known distress call from a helicopter that crashed into a Southern California home, killing three people and injuring two others.
Joshua Cawthra, an investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board, said Wednesday the helicopter was headed to Catalina Island when it crashed in Newport Beach shortly after takeoff.
The island is southwest of Los Angeles.
The cause of Tuesday’s crash remains unknown.
The helicopter’s pilot was among the three people on board who were killed. A fourth person on board was injured, as was a man on the ground.
Those killed were identified as 60-year-old Joseph Tena of Newport Beach, 45-year-old Kimberly Watzman of Santa Monica, and 56-year-old Brian Reichelt of Hollywood, Florida.
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1/30/2018 3:05 p.m. Authorities say three people are dead after a small helicopter crashed into a home near a Southern California airport.
Two other people were injured when the Robinson R44 smashed into the side of the home in Newport Beach at about 1:45 p.m. Tuesday.
Newport Beach fire Capt. Chip Duncan says it’s unclear whether the three people who were killed were on board the four-seat chopper.
An eyewitness tells KCAL-TV that he saw the pilot lying injured but alive on the grass and there were three other people inside the wreckage.
There was no fire and it’s unclear whether anybody was in the home.
The Federal Aviation Administration says the helicopter had taken off from John Wayne Airport. The airport is about a mile from the crash site.
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{“url”:”https://twitter.com/NewportBeachPD/status/958470506855870464″,”author_name”:”Newport Beach Police”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/NewportBeachPD”,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;UPDATE on Helicopter Crash – 4 passengers on board. Passengers are being assessed and transported for medical aid. It does not appear that any persons on the ground were involved. PIO responding to the scene.&#lt;/p&#gt;– Newport Beach Police (@NewportBeachPD) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/NewportBeachPD/status/958470506855870464?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;January 30, 2018&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}
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