
2 helicopters crash midair in Oregon, killing an experienced pilot, an instructor and a student
By Marcus Chen
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Federal investigators in Oregon will work to determine why a helicopter on a test flight collided with another chopper flown by a young instructor and her student, killing all three people aboard both aircraft.The National Transportation Safety Board said Friday morning that its team was on its way to examine the wreckage near the airport in McMinnville, about an hour’s drive southwest of Portland. The town lies in the broad, flat Willamette Valley near the foothills of the Coast Range, in the heart of Oregon’s wine country.The crash happened around 2 p.m. Thursday on a cloudy day and left behind a crumpled red helicopter in pieces in a farm field and a green helicopter that came to rest upside down.Few details are immediately available about why the smaller Robinson R22 helicopter collided with the Airbus AS350B3 helicopter that the NTSB said was on a maintenance flight that is typically done after maintenance or repair. The Robinson was on an instructional flight.The victims included