Copter blade hit power line before crash
Posted on Friday, July 18, 2008
MOUNTAIN HOME — Skies were clear and winds were less than 4 mph when a helicopter crashed and killed two people in Baxter County this week, the government’s lead investigator into the accident said Thursday.
National Transportation Safety Board investigator Dan Baker also said all major components of the helicopter’s engine were intact before the aircraft hit the ground just below Norfork Dam at 9: 25 a.m. Tuesday.
Baker said the investigative team’s on-site investigation confirmed that one of the three blades of the 1965 Hughes Rotorcraft 269 B struck an electrical transmission line before the crash.
The accident killed the pilot, James Dean Evertsen, 57, of West Plains, Mo., and his passenger, Randall J. Arthur, 51, of Marshfield, Mo.
Arthur, who worked for Sho-Me Power Electric Cooperative in Marshfield, was making a routine aerial inspection of his company’s transmission line at the hydropower dam. Sho-Me Power had chartered the flight through Evertsen’s Ozark Mountain Helicopters LLC in Branson.
Baker said the six-member investigative team will gather facts and evidence but will not draw conclusions about a possible cause. He will write the group’s report and forward it to the safety board, which determines a probable cause. The team spent about seven hours at the crash site in a rugged, wooded ravine near the North Fork River on Wednesday.
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