(Updated story: Investigators on scene of aircraft collision in Frederick)
Three people were killed Thursday when a helicopter conducting a training exercise and a private plane collided in midair near Frederick Municipal Airport.
Two men from Montgomery County suffered minor injuries in the 3:40 p.m. crash and were released from Meritus Health in Hagerstown by 7 p.m., the Maryland State Police said Thursday night. State police spokesman Greg Shipley said both men had been on the plane. They were identified as Gilbert Porter, 75, of Sandy Spring, Md., and Scott V. Graeves, 55, of Brookeville, Md.
The three who died were found near the helicopter. They were identified as Christopher D. Parsons, 29, of Westminster, Md.; William Jenkins, 47, of Morrison, Colo.; and Breandan J. MacFawn, 35, of Cumberland, Md. Investigators said Thursday night that all three had been on the helicopter. It was not immediately clear which person was the pilot.
The aircraft were identified by Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Laura Brown as a 2006 Cirrus SR22, which is a four-seat plane equipped with a parachute that can be deployed for landing, and an R44 helicopter, manufactured by Robinson Helicopter.
Records indicate that the plane, which is registered in Olney, Md., was flying to the Frederick airport from Cleveland, Tenn. Three helicopters were in the air as the plane approached. The company Advanced Helicopter Concepts routinely trains pilots at the Frederick airport.
Porter said late Thursday night that he and Graeves had clearance to land and were in their pattern to descend when suddenly they felt the collision and in a matter of seconds both Porter and the pilot knew they were going to crash.
“We were heading toward the ground at 60 mph, I mean, it was scary as hell,” Porter said in a telephone interview.
Porter and Graeves were at the tail of a day-long trip to Tennessee, where Porter travelled to visit some cutting horses he owns, he said. The pair left Maryland about 7 a.m. for Tennessee and then returned in the afternoon. They had no trouble until they nearly got home.
“I’m very lucky to be alive. What saved our lives was that parachute,” Porter said.
After the crash, Graeves deployed the parachute, which slowed them until they careened into the small tree which further broke the plane’s momentum. Then it finally crashed onto the ground, but they were not out of danger.
“It was a little scary because the wing tore open and the fuel was everywhere,” Porter said. Someone on the ground said ‘Don’t anybody smoke.’ ”
Porter said he sustained minor cuts to his face and bruising to his chest and an arm.
Minutes before the crash, Jesse Ault had picked up his wife, Pamela Slifer, at her office, which is adjacent to the airfield. As they sat in a fast-food drive-through, Slifer turned to her husband and said, “Oh, my God!”
“My wife and I saw the plane spinning out of control as it came down,” Ault said in a phone interview. “It just happened so quick. The plane crashed right at the corner of her building. It was pretty crazy.”
Ault drove across a grassy area, near the trees where the plane had settled, and he and his wife looked around to see if they could help. By the time they arrived, other witnesses had helped remove a man — believed to be the pilot — from the plane, Ault said.
Shipley said state police did not know the cause of the crash. Investigators found a parachute on the ground that may have been attached to the plane, not a person.
National Transportation Safety Board investigator Brian Rayner said he did not know whether the parachute on the plane saved the lives of the two people on board.
The helicopter crashed into a storage facility near the county fairgrounds, about a tenth of a mile from where the plane went down, Shipley said. Rayner said the helicopter was “destroyed.”
An air traffic controller was speaking to the plane’s pilot from the control tower at the Frederick airport just before the crash.
It is routine for planes to fly a U-shaped approach, heading downwind and then turning upwind for the final approach and landing. With a strong wind coming from the north Thursday, that meant flying south parallel to the runway and then turning north to land.
In an audio recording, the controller can be heard telling the plane’s pilot, “I have three helicopters below you in the traffic pattern.”
“I’ve got two of them in sight,” the pilot responded.
Just after the controller said, “Clear to land,” a panicked voice can be heard on the recording saying, “Oh, God! Oh, God!”
Immediately, a voice from one of the unaffected helicopters can be heard: “Airplane down! Helicopter down!”
The collision occurred near Frederick Community College’s Monroe Center, prompting the school to cancel all classes and activities Thursday evening at that facility. The main campus of the college is a few miles northwest, near Fort Detrick.
Bill King, a spokesman for Cirrus, said an accident-response team from the manufacturer was headed to the site, where it will work with the NTSB to investigate the cause of the crash.
“We’ve got a fair amount of information already,” King said. “In the final analysis, that doesn’t change what happened for several families today. A bunch of people’s lives changed dramatically today.”
Ashley Halsey and Nick Anderson contributed to this report.
