Hammonton, New Jersey, faced a deadly midair aviation crash Sunday when two helicopters collided over Hammonton Municipal Airport, according to authorities. Hammonton Police Chief Kevin Friel said rescuers responded to a report of an aviation crash at about 11:25 a.m., and police and fire crews extinguished flames that engulfed one of the aircraft. The crash killed one pilot and left the other critically injured, Friel said.
The Federal Aviation Administration described the incident as a midair collision between an Enstrom F-28A helicopter and an Enstrom 280C helicopter over the airport, and said that only the pilots were on board each aircraft. The injured pilot was transported to a hospital with life-threatening injuries, according to the AP report.
Witness accounts described both helicopters entering a rapid downward motion. Sal Silipino, who owns a cafe near the crash site, said the pilots were regulars who often ate breakfast together and that customers watched the helicopters take off before one began spinning downward, followed by the other.
“It was shocking,” Silipino said, adding, “I’m still shaking after that happened.” Hammonton resident Dan Dameshek, speaking to NBC10, said he heard a loud snap while leaving a gym and saw the helicopters spinning out of control.
Dameshek told NBC10 that the first helicopter went from right side up to upside down and began rapidly spinning and falling, and that he then saw the second helicopter appear okay briefly before it also started rapidly spinning after another snap, according to the AP account. Investigators and emergency responders remained focused on the scene as the aircraft came down near the airport.
The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the crash, Friel said. Investigators will likely begin by reviewing communications between the two pilots and whether the pilots were able to see each other, said Alan Diehl, a former crash investigator for the FAA and NTSB.
Diehl explained that “Virtually all midair collisions are a failure to what they call ‘see and avoid,’” and said investigators will examine out-of-cockpit views to determine whether one pilot approached from the blind side, according to the AP report. Weather conditions at the time were mostly cloudy but with light winds and good visibility, according to AccuWeather.
The crash drew attention to procedures designed to prevent similar encounters between aircraft in flight. As the FAA and NTSB investigate, authorities said the focus will remain on understanding how the pilots’ visibility and communications factored into the midair collision.