REDDING, Calif. — Witnesses to the deadly helicopter crash in Shasta-Trinity National Forest said the aircraft appeared to be struggling from the moment it took off with 13 passengers aboard, a federal official said Friday.
“The liftoff was slower than normal,” said Kitty Higgins, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board. “The forward motion of the helicopter was slower than normal. The nose of the helicopter struck a tree and there were several rotor strikes of trees that followed.”
The Sikorsky S-61 rose about 45 or 50 feet, Higgins said at a media briefing here three days after the accident, which killed nine.
It ended up on its left side about 150 feet from the remote takeoff site and “quickly filled with very dense, thick black smoke.”
Three of those aboard were able to flee the helicopter, and a fourth was dragged from the wreckage before it burst into flames. Photos of the crash site show not much more than a blackened outline of the craft with some of the tail remaining.
But Higgins said investigators had recovered the cockpit voice recorder, which was in “better condition than we hoped, given the conditions at the crash site.”
It is unclear, however, how much useful information can be obtained from the machine. The recorder is en route to the agency’s labs in Washington. Investigators also believe they will be able to retrieve engines and rotor blades from the wreckage.
Higgins also said federal authorities worked with the coroners’ offices in Shasta and Trinity counties Friday to remove the remains of the nine who died in the crash, but “that will be a very difficult job.”
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