Helicopter Crashes in Grand Canyon, 3 Dead

Helicopter Crashes in Grand Canyon, 3 Dead
Stock photo of police tape. (Carl Ballou/Shutterstock)
Epoch Newsroom
2/11/2018
Updated:
2/11/2018

A tourist helicopter crashed in the Grand Canyon on Saturday, killing three people and injuring four others, Arizona media and a federal aviation spokesman said.

The helicopter was on a tour of the canyon, one of the top U.S. tourist destinations and more than a mile deep, when it went down, a dispatcher for the Hualapai Department of Emergency Services told Phoenix television station KNXV.

He said three people were killed and four had unknown injuries, and that authorities were possibly looking for one or two more people, the station reported.

Police Chief Francis E. Bradley of the Hualapai Nation Police Department also wrote in a statement that the accident occurred at around 5:20 p.m. local time near Quartermaster Canyon.

He added, “The only access to the crash site area is by foot on a 20-mile hike or by helicopter.”

The Hualapai Department of Emergency Services directed calls to police, who did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

The helicopter, the Eurocopter EC130 from Airbus, “crashed under unknown circumstances in the Grand Canyon” and suffered substantial damage, Allen Kenitzer, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said in an email.

“Local authorities say that at least seven people were on board the helicopter,” he said. The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate, Kenitzer said.

Reuters contributed to this report.
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