Washington
—
A firefighting helicopter crew’s decision to fly an altitude higher than they were cleared for and the subsequent rapid descent led to the deaths of three people in a midair collision in 2023, according to a final report from the National Transportation Safety Board.
Thursday’s report concludes the investigation into the collision between a Bell 407, on a helicopter coordinator training flight, and a Sikorsky S-64E Skycrane helitanker during a 2023 wildfire near Cabazon, California.
The report concludes the cause of the collision was the Skycrane crew’s decision to enter the airspace around the fire at “an altitude significantly above their maximum cleared altitude, which resulted in their need for an aggressive descent into congested airspace and subsequent failure to see and avoid the Bell 407.”
