B.C. helicopter crash victims ID'd as investigation begins


Becky Rynor and Jorge Barrera, Canwest News Service


Published: Tuesday, May 13, 2008


B.C. chopper crash kills four, including a man mailing a letter



RCMP have identified the three victims who were inside a helicopter that crashed in southeastern British Columbia Tuesday as pilot Edward William Kyle Heeb, 57, and BC Hydro technicians Dirk Bentley Rozenboom, 45, and Robert William Lehmann, 37.

Meanwhile, the family of the fourth victim, a pedestrian who was killed when the chopper crashed into a residential area of Cranbrook, B.C., was reeling with the news that Isaiah Otieno, a 20-year-old Kenyan, had died in such a freak accident.

"We talked to him yesterday, and he was walking to the post to send particulars for his passport," a stunned Dalmas Otieno, the business student's father, said in a telephone interview with Canwest News Service from Nairobi.

"He was going to mail a letter and this helicopter must have crashed," said Otieno, who is Kenya's minister for public services.

Murray Whyte, a spokesman for Big Horn Helicopters, which owned the aircraft, said there "was a lot of suffering here yesterday."

Whyte said the pilot's family, from Peace River, Alta., was being brought to Cranbrook, "to help with closure."

"They're coming down to meet with the president, the police. Anybody they want to. Whoever they want to talk to," he said.

Meanwhile, three investigators with the Transportation Safety Board have been dispatched to the scene of the crash and other government officials are gearing up to watch over their shoulders.

"We certainly want to determine if there was power to the rotor systems prior to impact. We will be looking for mechanical malfunction, things broken, trying to determine if they are pre-impact or post impact breaks," said TSB spokesman Bill Yearwood. "We try to use the physical evidence to collaborate witness information, because we've got lots of witnesses and some of the witness information conflicts."

Federal Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon vowed in a statement that "any safety deficiencies identified through the Transportation Safety Board's investigation, or through Transport Canada's verifications, will be addressed immediately."

He also said his department has appointed a formal observer "who will keep me informed of the investigation's progress," adding that Transport Canada will ensure that Cranbrook-based Big Horn "continues to comply with all aspects of Canadian aviation regulations and the conditions of its air operator certificate."

Yearwood said the appointment of the observer is a common move, to expedite communications between the TSB and the minister.

"If we find a problem with the aircraft, a part, an inspection, or whatever that requires immediate action to make sure similar aircraft that could have the same problem are inspected or grounded or parts change before they fly again, that person is our conduit back to the minister," Yearwood said.

Whyte said Big Horn, which employs 18 people, "will be assisting the TSB in every way possible."

"This company goes right by the regulations and the rules with all their helicopters for maintenance and everything else," Whyte said.

"Really, everything is out of our hands at this point and in the hands of the Transportation Safety Board."

BC Hydro said the Rozenboom and Lehmann, the two deceased passengers, were power line technicians en route to a routine check of a transmission tower in a rural area.

Witnesses to the tragedy said the Bell 206 helicopter appeared to struggle to remain in the air before it crashed.

One witness said Isaiah Otieno seemed a like a man content with life as he walked to mail his letter to his family.

"I thought to myself, now there's a happy-looking guy," said Joe Pierre, a school teacher. "It was his face. It was his gait. He just looked happy and then wham! It just happened in that second."

Cranbrook is about 360 kilometres southwest of Calgary.

Grief spans continents in aftermath of copter crash

Gwendolyn Richards and Stephane Massinon, Canwest News Service
Wednesrday, April 14, 2008 -- Published: 2 hours ago


CRANBROOK, B.C. - As Transportation Safety Board investigators returned to the scene of a horrific helicopter crash in a residential Cranbrook neighbourhood, family members of the four dead men were left Wednesday to come to grips with their loss.

Three of the victims in Tuesday's crash were in the helicopter. The fourth was an exchange student who was walking to the mailbox when the aircraft crashed on him.

Pilot Edward William Kyle Heeb, 57, had 17 years of experience flying under his belt when he took out the Bell 206 JetRanger carrying two BC Hydro employees to inspect power lines.


Isaiah Otieno was killed Tuesday
when a helicopter struck him on
a Cranbrook street.
Photo courtesy Isaac Hockley

The chopper - operated by Bighorn Helicopters - appeared to hang in the air before it banked to the left and then plummeted to the street, exploding around 1:15 p.m. Tuesday.

Following the crash on the quiet residential street lined with single family homes with apartment buildings, Heeb is being hailed as a hero.

"That the pilot saved lives by not crashing into the apartments. Whatever he did, he did it right," said resident Fred Schindel who watched the helicopter for about 10 minutes before it crashed.

Heeb, along with Dirk Bentley Rozenboom, 45, and Robert William Lehmann, 37 died in the crash. It also killed Isaiah Otieno, 20, a student from Kenya studying business at College of the Rockies.

Otieno's family in Nairobi were stunned to hear of his sudden death.

"We talked to him yesterday, and he was walking to the post to send particulars for his passport," a stunned Dalmas Otieno, the business student's father, said in a telephone interview with Canwest News Service.

A close friend of the young man said Isaiah aspired to one day make a difference in his homeland like his father, who is Kenya's minister for public services.

"He always wanted to fill his dad's shoes," Isaac Hockley said.

Hockley and Otieno met through school and played pool on the same team, but the bond went beyond that.

When Otieno had to spend his first Christmas in Canada by himself two years ago, he was invited to dinner with Hockley's family.

The friendship was further cemented when Otieno, who was six foot nine, grabbed a man who was coming after Hockley during a fight at Misty's Lounge, where Otieno worked as a bouncer.

"He saved my life," Hockley said. "If it wasn't for Isaiah, I would have been done for sure."

Otieno's 19-year-old girlfriend has been hit particularly hard. The couple had only been together for three months and the young woman had taken a two-year break from dating after her previous boyfriend died.

"For this to happen to her is unbelievably devastating," said the woman's mother, who did not want to give her name.

Heeb, a senior pilot, had joined Bighorn in August after moving from Peace River, Alta., where he also worked as a helicopter pilot.

His family was reportedly en route to Cranbrook Wednesday.

"They're coming down to meet with the president, the police," said Bighorn spokesman Murray Whyte. "Whoever they want to talk to."

Rozenboom had been with BC Hydro since Sept. 2000 and was working as a power line technician at the time of the crash.

Lehmann had been with the company for a little more than six years and had previously worked in Courtney on Vancouver Island and Surrey, B.C. He left behind a wife and two children.

Families for both asked for privacy while they deal with their grief.

In a strange twist, it was revealed Wednesday that one of the two BC Hydro workers had only been on board for less than 20 minutes before the fatal crash after replacing another worker when the chopper stopped to refuel.

"He got off because he was feeling a little bit air sick. He asked if someone else could do the rest of the flight for him," RCMP Cpl. Chris Faulkner said.

The helicopter crashed between 10 and 20 minutes later.

"You could tell he was in shock and not feeling good," said Faulkner of the employee.

RCMP found out these details when investigators asked BC Hydro for contact numbers for the two dead workers' families, Faulkner said.

Meanwhile, investigators looking into a fatal helicopter crash that killed four people in Cranbrook believe the pilot may have been trying to execute an emergency powerless landing called an autorotation.

Bill Yearwood, a spokesman for the Transportation Safety Board, said there is evidence the pilot may have been attempting to prepare for an emergency landing before the crash.

The initial investigation shows the helicopter was operating within what aviation specialists call the "dead man's curve," a combination of low altitude and slow speed that generally prevents the successful safe landing of a helicopter in the event of a power loss.

"The information we have at this time is that the aircraft was under some sort of control," he said, "but that its attitude was changing just before touchdown. That is consistent with an emergency landing, such as a flare."

A flare is the one of the last procedures in an autorotation, where the pilot uses the helicopter's height and airspeed to mechanically land the aircraft even if it doesn't have power.

Yearwood said Hydro's power line inspection program involves using helicopters in a "low and slow" mode that complicates the opportunity for a safe landing in an emergency.

"As far as the power line patrol is concerned, we know that the helicopters in certain flight conditions, in other words low and slow, are in what is called a dead man's curve," he said.

Federal Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon vowed in a statement that "any safety deficiencies identified through the Transportation Safety Board's investigation, or through Transport Canada's verifications, will be addressed immediately."

He also said his department has appointed a formal observer "who will keep me informed of the investigation's progress," adding that Transport Canada will ensure that Cranbrook-based Bighorn "continues to comply with all aspects of Canadian aviation regulations and the conditions of its air operator certificate."

Yearwood said the appointment of the observer is a common move, to expedite communications between the TSB and the minister.

"If we find a problem with the aircraft, a part, an inspection, or whatever that requires immediate action to make sure similar aircraft that could have the same problem are inspected or grounded or parts change before they fly again, that person is our conduit back to the minister," Yearwood said.


A BC Hydro spokesman refused to comment about the crash or any events leading up to it, saying all that information was part of the investigation being handled by the TSB.

Investigators photographed what little debris was left from the crash Wednesday and spent the day packing it carefully.

"The wreckage is being transported to a facility near Vancouver for deeper examination," board spokeswoman Julie Leroux said.

There was no black box onboard the helicopter because it was not required, so investigators are looking to speak with anyone who may have witnessed the event or saw the helicopter in the moments before the crash.

"There was no contact from anyone on board, so we don't know if they experienced any trouble before it went down," RCMP's Faulkner said.

"But with them flying as low as we were told that they were, if something happened suddenly, there probably wasn't time to react and get a message out."

Witnesses had told police the helicopter was near the treetops - about 20 to 30 metres up - just before it fell.

Faulkner said the investigation has not yet isolated whether mechanical failure or human error is to blame.

The tight-knit community of 20,000 has been left shocked by the horrible accident, said Mayor Ross Priest who has lived in Cranbrook for the last 21 years.

"It's certainly upset the community," he said Wednesday. "It's the first time and we hope the last time we have an accidentlike this take place in the city."

Counselling is being offered to those who watched in horror as the chopper crashed, engulfing the four victims in flames, he added.

"It's a freak accident," he said.

"It's not the way we want to be involved in the national media."

In the wake of the accident, BC Hydro cancelled all power line inspection flights until further notice. Susan Danard, a company spokeswoman, said Hydro did so out of respect for the victims, and for the safety of its employees.

"We're all a bit shaken up about this," she said.

"We don't want our employees to be undertaking this kind of work when their minds may be preoccupied on the accident and their colleagues."

Calgary Herald

- with files from Canwest News Service and the Vancouver Sun


grichards@theherald.canwest.com

smassinon@theherald.canwest.com

Reference Source

http://www.cbc.ca/photogallery/canada/1258/


Photos of the chopper just before the fatal crash.

quote:

Originally posted by Eric's_Revenge:
http://www.cbc.ca/photogallery/canada/1258/


Photos of the chopper just before the fatal crash.

I hope Jagdeo and his ministers uses the Bell 206 choppers a lot to fly around Guyana!

quote:

Originally posted by Lion King:

quote:

Originally posted by Eric's_Revenge:
http://www.cbc.ca/photogallery/canada/1258/


Photos of the chopper just before the fatal crash.

I hope Jagdeo and his ministers uses the Bell 206 choppers a lot to fly around Guyana!

Be careful! GNI may be suspended for four months.