Helicopter in fatal B.C. crash had no black box, investigator says
Last Updated: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 | 12:20 PM PT
CBC News
The Bell 206 helicopter in flames on the street moments after the crash. (Submitted by Larry Belzac) Eyewitness reports may be the only hope of determining the events that led to the fatal crash of a helicopter in Cranbrook, B.C., a senior investigator with the Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday.
The badly mangled helicopter was not carrying a black box, or flight data recorder, that could have contained a message or other data from the doomed flight's final moments, Damien Lawson said from Cranbrook.
"I understand we have some relatively credible witnesses who saw the aircraft in distress just before it crashed," Lawson said, "so that could lead us to a good flight profile of the helicopter."
Witnesses said Tuesday the helicopter appeared to have had engine troubles just before the crash.
Edward William Kyle Heeb, the pilot killed in the crash, had flown for Cranbrook-based Big Horn Helicopter since August of 2007, company spokesman Murray Whyte said Wednesday.
Kenyan student Isaiah Otieno was killed in the helicopter crash in Cranbrook on Tuesday. (Submitted by Isaac Hockley) "He was a pilot for 17 years," Whyte said, "very professional with an exemplary record."
Heeb, 57, is survived by his wife and three children.
Also killed in the crash were BC Hydro workers Dirk Bentley Rozenboom, 45, and Robert William Lehmann, 37, and Isaiah Otieno, 23, the son of a prominent Kenyan politician.
Grief and trauma counsellors arrived in Cranbrook on Wednesday to help B.C. Hydro workers deal with the loss of Rozenboom and Lehmann.
A friend said that Otieno, 23, a student at the College of the Rockies, was out for a walk and was wearing stereo earbuds, so he might not have heard the falling helicopter.
Otieno was hit by the Bell 206 helicopter as it came in low and dragged 10 to 15 metres before being trapped under it when it crashed. Witnesses told CBC News they tried to pull him from the wreckage but efforts to save him failed.
The bodies of the four victims were removed from the scene late Tuesday night. The coroner service supervised the removal and will likely verify the identities by using dental records.
Only parts of the helicopter remained after much of the fuselage burned up in the fiery crash. (Submitted by Larry Belzac) Three investigators from the federal Transportation Safety Board who arrived at the crash site Tuesday afternoon were expected to continue their investigation Wednesday.
The helicopter burned so badly after the crash that little remained of the fuselage except for sections of the tail rotor. The crash site was covered by a large tent later Tuesday afternoon.
The helicopter crashed in the middle of a street in a busy residential neighbourhood in Cranbrook, in the southeastern interior of B.C., on Tuesday afternoon.
Witnesses said the chopper was flying low before the crash at 1 p.m. MT when it came down near the corner of 10th Street and 14th Avenue.
A bouquet of flowers at the crash scene honours the four who died.
