5 months ago
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Two helicopters crashed midair successful New Jersey connected Sunday (December 28, 2025), sidesplitting 1 idiosyncratic and critically injuring another, authorities say.
Hammonton Police Chief Kevin Friel said rescuers responded to a study of an aviation clang astatine astir 11:25 am. Video from the country shows a chopper spinning rapidly to the ground. Police and occurrence crews subsequently extinguished flames that engulfed 1 of the helicopters.
The Federal Aviation Administration described the clang arsenic a midair collision betwixt an Enstrom F-28A chopper and Enstrom 280C chopper implicit Hammonton Municipal Airport. Only the pilots were connected committee each aircraft.
One idiosyncratic was killed and different was transported to a infirmary with life-threatening injuries.
Hammonton is simply a municipality of astir 15,000 radical located successful Atlantic County successful the confederate portion of New Jersey, astir 35 miles (56 kilometres) southeast of Philadelphia. The municipality has a past of agriculture and is located adjacent the Pine Barrens, a forested wilderness country that covers much than 1 cardinal acres (405,000 hectares).
The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board volition beryllium investigating the crash, Friel said.
Investigators volition apt archetypal look to reappraisal immoderate communications betwixt the 2 pilots and whether they were capable to spot each other, said Alan Diehl, a erstwhile clang researcher for the FAA and NTSB.
"Virtually, each midair collisions are a nonaccomplishment to what they telephone 'see and avoid'," Diehl said. "Clearly, they volition beryllium looking astatine the out-of-cockpit views of the 2 craft and seeing if 1 aviator was approaching from the unsighted side." Although it was mostly cloudy astatine the clip of the crash, winds were airy and visibility was good, according to the upwind forecasting institution AccuWeather.
