Officials Investigating Helicopter Crash
ST. JOSEPH COUNTY — Officials are investigating a Monday helicopter crash in Walkerton.
Police were called to the scene around 2:15 p.m.
The pilot, who has been identified as 41-year-old Nathan Schrock, was the only one in the aircraft. Police said he was spraying a nearby field when the engine failed.
In a Facebook message, Schrock said, “My only thought was to get it safely on the ground without hurting anyone else. I salvaged the best possible outcome I could with the scenario I was given.”
The agricultural helicopter, a 1979 Bell 206 B3, landed and crashed into a driveway, damaging a parked pickup truck and livestock trailer as the helicopter fell down onto its side.
Schrock also said he was uninjured.
“[I] was able to crawl from the aircraft under my own power,” he said.
Linda Roush, who said she lives about 3 miles away, heard about this crash on Facebook.
“I’m thinking, ‘Oh, my gosh!’ I am just glad nobody got hurt, because that’s a mess,” Roush said.
The Federal Aviation Administration collected facts on scene Monday evening and will start its investigation soon.
“We will find out hopefully here once we get the aircraft to a facility where we can actually do an inspection of the engine to find out what’s going on. …We look at certain signatures — how the aircraft may have landed, whether it was a hard landing, whether it was a soft landing. …There’s a lot of things that go into the investigation,” FAA aviation safety inspector Dwayne Hudson said.
Police said Schrock refused medical treatment.
The National Transportation Safety Board will also be investigating.
Source: WNDU