Photos show it was in the rocky hills/mountains...not my favorite terrain to fly over.
http://www.kathrynsreport.com/2014/09/fatal-accident-occurred-september-22.html
Mosquito Aviation XE: Fatal accident occurred September 21, 2014 in Cascade County, Montana
An Ipswich man was killed on Sunday when the ultra-light helicopter he was piloting crashed in Montana, authorities said.
In an e-mail, Cascade County, Mont., Sheriff Bob Edwards identified the victim as 62-year-old John Joseph Maliszewski.
Edwards said Maliszewski “was involved in a helicopter crash in an area in Cascade County called the Dearborn. Mr. Maliszewski did die as a result of injuries sustained in the crash. ... Mr. Maliszewski’s family has been notified.”
Edwards added that the “helicopter is an ultra-light Mosquito single seat helicopter. The investigation is ongoing at this point. The Cascade County Sheriff’s Office, with assistance from the [Federal Aviation Administration] is conducting the investigation.”
The crash occurred at about 5 p.m. on Sunday, Edwards wrote. He added that Maliszewski was the owner of the helicopter, and that his level of experience as a pilot was not known as of Monday.
Edwards said he was unsure why Maliszewski was in Montana at the time of the crash.
Attempts to reach possible relatives of Maliszewski in Massachusetts and New Hampshire were unsuccessful on Monday.
Allen Kenitzer, an FAA spokesman, wrote in an e-mail that “according to local authorities, there was one person onboard the aircraft” at the time of the crash. He did not say how long the FAA investigation may take. Kenitzer said the aircraft crashed “under unknown circumstances.”
Peter Knudson, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, said the NTSB is not investigating the crash, since the helicopter is not required to have a registration number with the FAA. The NTSB is not required to open a review in such cases, Knudson said.
An entry in an NTSB accident database showed that the pilot of a similar helicopter, a Schulman Mosquito XEL, was killed in a crash in Halifax, Mass., in September 2010.
In that instance, the aircraft “was hovering just above the trees, [and] the tail section yawed left and right, followed by the main rotor blades tipping left and right. The helicopter then entered a spin and nosed over and impacted the trees,” the entry said.
The NTSB determined that the probable cause of that crash was the pilot’s loss of control while hovering, and that a contributing factor was the pilot’s limited experience flying the helicopter.
Another pilot of an Innovator Technologies Mosquito XEL helicopter suffered serious injuries but survived a crash in September 2013 in Felda, Fla., during a landing attempt, according to the NTSB database.
http://www.bostonglobe.com
AIRCRAFT CRASHED UNDER UNKNOWN CIRCUMSTANCES. UNREGISTERED MOSQUITO HELO. CASCADE, MT
Flight Standards District Office - Federal Aviation Administration
Any witnesses should email
[email protected], and any friends and family who want to contact investigators about the accident should email
[email protected].
GREAT FALLS -- Cascade County Sheriff Bob Edwards has confirmed that a man died in a small helicopter crash near Dearborn Sunday afternoon.
Edwards also confirmed that the man was the only person on board the helicopter.
The crash happened just after 5:00 p.m. Sunday along Dearborn River Road near the Cascade County/Lewis & Clark County line.
The Dearborn Volunteer Fire Department, Cascade County Sheriff's Department, and Great Falls EMS responded to the scene.
The helicopter was reported to be a single-seat "mosquito" helicopter.
Investigators from the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are en route and expected to arrive Monday morning.
The man's body is being taken to the state lab in Missoula for autopsy.
Authorities have not yet identified the victim and no information on the cause of the crash is available at this time.
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