Two people resulted dead from a helicopter crash in Ellis County, Texas, on Wednesday. The victims were part of an experimental ride in the twin-engine Bell 525 helicopter, which ended up destroyed from the incident.
The aircraft went down in a field in South Ellis County, near FM 876 north of Bell Ranch Rd at 11:50 a.m., the Ellis County Emergency Management director stated. The people killed were workers at Bell Helicopters and their names have not been released to the public.
“This is a devastating day for Bell Helicopter,” the company said in a press release. “We are deeply saddened by the loss of our teammates and have reached out to their families to offer our support. Bell Helicopter representatives are onsite to assess the situation and provide any assistance to local, state, and federal authorities.”
The incident barely left any pieces on the ground. Debris could be seen scattered across the field near where the helicopter apparently crashed, as reported by CBS Local. The brand-new helicopter was on a test flight from its Xworx facility in Arlington.
At first, investigators at the scene thought that the aircraft might have struck a nearby utility pole because the top of it was black and appeared to have been charred. However, Brazos Electric Company made a first review of the scene and determined that the aircraft did not hit the pole, and there was no power outage as a result of the crash.
Two other aircraft landed near the area, one of which was registered to Fort Worth-based Bell Helicopter. The Bell 525 had successfully achieved its first flight on July 1, 2015, with no notorious incidents.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Transportation Safety Board are currently conducting an investigation to determine what exactly went wrong with the machine and planned to spend all the night in the place to secure the scene.
Bursting into flames
According to Cecil Randall, a resident of the area who witnessed the incident, the helicopter showed troubling signs since it was on the air. She heard the machine came over to the location but it sounded flat, and something was clearly wrong, she said. Randall assured to have ignored the signs and later found out that there was a crash in the area.
Bell Helicopters commented that the machine was a fly-by-wire helicopter, which means that it is all electronic and has the first fully-integrated touch screen electronics systems. The machine was also able to perform a precise takeoff and landing procedures at its maximum weight, as reported by Fox News.
Source: CBS Local