A chopper transporting Herbert Wigwe, the CEO of Access Bank and Access Holdings, has crashed with him and about five others aboard in California, United States.
American news outlet CBS reported that Wigwe’s wife, son and Abimbola Ogunbanjo, a former chair of Nigerian Exchange Group also died in the crash.
The chopper was headed to Las Vegas when it crashed Friday night near Nipton, between Nevada and California.
United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in a statement confirmed all onboard are dead.
FAA said no survivors had been found as of Saturday.
“We were made aware of a downed aircraft at approximately 10:12 p.m., on February 10, 2024. The scene of the crash was determined to be east of the 15-Freeway, near Halloran Springs Road,” the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement.
FAA identified the aircraft as a Eurocopter EC 130 helicopter. It was registered to a Burbank-based tour company called Orbic Air.
The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the cause of the crash at the time of filing this report.
Accidents history
Manufactured by Airbus Helicopters SAS (formerly Eurocopter), the single-engine aircraft and its variations have a long history of accidents.
On December 1, a Eurocopter EC 130B4, belonging to the Mexican Federal Electricity Commission, struck power cables during take-off and crashed, killing three people on board.
A February 2018 crash involving the aircraft killed five people, all of them Britons, in the Grand Canyon.
Two brothers, Stuart and Jason Hill, 30 and 32, were among the dead. Stuart Hill’s girlfriend Becky Dobson was also killed in the crash. The three were pronounced dead at the scene.
The aircraft burst into flames after crashing. The pilot told American investigators that the helicopter encountered a “violent gust of wind” and started spinning.
NTSB said that tailwinds and turbulence were likely the reasons it lost control.
Apart from the pilot Scott Booth, Jason Hill’s girlfriend Jennifer Dorricott also survived. But both sustained life-altering injuries.
A lawsuit that arose from that accident ended in a $100 million landmark judgment in January.
The parents of one of the victims, Jonathan Udall, sued Papillon Airways Inc., the company that owned the aircraft and the manufacturer Airbus Helicopters SAS.
Udall’s new wife, Ellie, also died in the crash. They both died of complications from burns days later.
A Nevada court ruled that Papillon Airways would pay $24.6 million to Udall’s parents and Airbus Helicopter to pay $75 million.
The lawsuit argued that the helicopter was not safe for flight because it did not have a crash-resistant fuel system, which made it burst into flames after crashing.
“The Udall family wants to shine a spotlight on this issue so the industry will take note and voluntarily seek to correct this public health issue. a lawyer for the Udalls told the Associated Press.
“They don’t want anyone else to go through what their son went through in an otherwise survivable accident — not a broken bone. He would have walked away.”
