CARLSBAD, Calif. — The National Transportation Safety Board says the pilot in a helicopter crash that killed two men at a California airport missed the portable helipad he was trying to land on.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that the entire sequence of events leading up to the Nov. 18 crash at the Carlsbad airport, including at least four landing attempts on the helipad, were caught on airport security cameras and several witnesses’ cellphone cameras.
The crash killed the pilot, 65-year-old Bruce Allen Erickson of Rancho Santa Fe, California, and 60-year-old Wayne Frank Lewis of Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California. Erickson was the chairman of American Bank of Montana.
The federal report shows that Erickson had piloted the aircraft several times since September, but always with a professional pilot present.