Deadly toll of thrillseekers’ flights
HELICOPTER rides over the Grand Canyon are advertised to holidaymakers as the ultimate sightseeing experience.
But there have been a series of deadly crashes – including one aircraft used by Papillon, the same firm involved in Saturday’s fatal smash.
In 2001, five members of one family and the pilot were killed when their Eurocopter AS350 crashed, leaving only one survivor.
A passenger on an earlier flight with the same pilot described a terrifying ‘Thelma and Louise’ manoeuvre in which the aircraft was flown low over a cliff ridge before plunging dramatically and then pulling out of the apparent nosedive.
The female tourist said the pilot had pointed out a site used in the film – which ends with the protagonists driving a car over a cliff – and asked if his passengers wanted to know how it felt.
An investigation into the 2001 fatality found the helicopter wreckage, found at the base of cliffs, was ‘consistent with a manoeuvre of this type’. Pilot error was blamed. Another Papillon pilot was killed in 2014 in the Grand Canyon, when he got out to perform a safety check and the helicopter started to take off. As it toppled over, the pilot was hit by the rotor blades. The passengers had already got out and were not injured.
The company has been at the centre of several other safety probes by the National Transportation Safety Board, alongside many other operators running similar tours.
In 2003, seven people were killed when a Sundance helicopter hit a canyon wall, and in the 1990s there were at least six deadly crashes involving helicopters or light aircraft, killing a total of 35 people. The campaign group Aviation Impact Reform say there have been at least 30 ‘significant accidents’ at the canyon since 1980, involving fatal and non-fatal injuries.
Papillon’s website says it flies around 600,000 passengers a year around the Grand Canyon and on other tours, and said its flight safety rules and regulations ‘substantially exceed the regulations required by the Federal Aviation Administration’.