COAL MOGUL DIES IN COPTER CRASH
His daughter and 5 others also killed
A helicopter crash near the Bahamas killed West Virginia billionaire and major Republican donor Chris Cline, his 22-year-old daughter and several of her friends on the Fourth of July.
Police in the Caribbean country said the chopper was flying from Big Grand Cay to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., when it crashed into the Atlantic Ocean about 2 miles from the island, killing all seven people aboard.
Authorities did not name all the victims, but said they were four women and three men, including Cline. Multiple news reports have identified the women as Cline’s daughter, Kameron, and her friends Brittney Searson, Jillian Clark and Delaney Wykle.
Cline, who would have turned 61 on Friday, was a coal magnate with a fortune estimated at nearly $2 billion.
He was friends with West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, who praised the billionaire Thursday on Twitter.
“Today we lost a WV superstar and I lost a very close friend,” he wrote. “Our families go back to the beginning of the Cline empire — Pioneer Fuel. Chris Cline built an empire and on every occasion was always there to give. What a wonderful, loving, and giving man.”
The cause of the crash was still under investigation Friday, but an official said an early investigation indicates there was no distress call before the accident.
Police in the Bahamas said they recovered the bodies and brought them to the capital of Nassau for official identification.
Cline founded and owned Foresight Energy, a leading producer of thermal coal. He began his career as an underground coal miner in southern West Virginia at age 22, a biography on the company’s website states.
“Chris was just one of those folks who had the Midas touch,” said Bill Raney, president of the West Virginia Coal Association.
The philanthropist supported many Republican politicians and donated $1 million to President Trump’s inaugural committee in 2017, federal records show.
Cline’s daughter and her friend Searson, 21, graduated from The Benjamin School in Florida in 2015 and then attended college together at Louisiana State University.
“Both were inseparable, just terrific,” Benjamin social studies teacher Steven Anderson said in a statement. “They were very good students, cheerful and lit up the room when they were in there. It was a privilege to teach them. They made teaching rewarding.”
Wykle was described in a friend’s Facebook post as someone who had “the sweetest soul” and “so much life ahead.” The other friend, Clark, also attended Louisiana State University and was a member of Kameron Cline’s sorority, according to The Times-Picayune newspaper in New Orleans.