At least three people were killed in a helicopter crash while touring the Grand Canyon in Arizona on Saturday, according to local reports and officials.
The helicopter had at least seven people on board when it crashed on the Hualapai Nation reservation, FAA spokesman Allen Kenitzer said, citing local authorities.
Three people were killed in a helicopter crash Saturday while touring the Grand Canyon.
(Julie Jacobson/AP)
Kenitzer identified the downed aircraft as a Eurocopter EC130 but he was unable to elaborate on where the helicopter went down or what caused the crash.
The aircraft sustained “substantial damage,” Kenitzer said in an email.
The condition of the four other passengers was unknown.
A Eurocpter EC 130, similar to what is pictured, crashed in the Grand Canyon, killing three people on board.
(Lukasz Golowanow and Maciej Hyps, Konflikty.p/Wikimedia Commons)
KNXV-TV reported that the helicopter passengers were touring the canyon.
The National Park Service and Hualapai Nation authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Quentin Lamar Smith, 30, was named a suspect in the shootings. He was wounded when the officers returned fire and was taken to a hospital, Christa Dickey, a spokeswoman for the city of Westerville, said in a phone interview. His condition was unknown, she said.
The shooting occurred in a condominium community with about 500 residents on Crosswind Drive, according to those who live in the area.
“It’s very sad. All you can do is pray at this point,” a resident, Charline Garrabrant, 75, said in a phone interview. The shooting occurred behind her garage.
Ms. Garrabrant and her husband, Karl Garrabrant, a retired fire chief for nearby Minerva Park, did not hear any gunfire, she said. They did not realize anything had happened until they saw police cars parked nearby and turned on their police scanner to learn more.
“Around here it’s always been pretty quiet,” she said. “I mean, the police have been here several times for mild disturbances, but not really close to where this happened.”
Photo
Investigators at the scene of a shooting in which two police officers were killed in Westerville, Ohio, on Saturday. Credit
Tom Dodge/The Columbus Dispatch, via Associated Press
Chief Morbitzer said there had been an outpouring of support from around the country.
“They knew how to do policing the right way, both of them,” he said. “Both gave their lives for the protection of others, and that’s what they lived and breathed.”
Outside the brick facade of the officers’ station on Saturday night, blue candles formed a ring around a makeshift memorial. A stream of mourners added to a growing pile of flowers.
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Residents remembered the officers as professional, courteous and caring.
“I’ve been in their cruiser a time or two,” said Chip Moon Jr., who visited with his wife, Heather, to pray and listen to a tribute. “I knew both of them for numerous years, and they were definitely heroes.”
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President Trump tweeted his condolences, and Gov. John Kasich of Ohio said on Twitter that he was “saddened to learn of the deaths of two of my hometown police officers.”
James P. O’Neill, the commissioner of the New York Police Department, said on Twitter that it sounded as if the officers were “ambushed.”
“Everyone should be as upset about this as America’s law enforcement officers are. No cop, anywhere, ‘signed up’ to be murdered,” he wrote.
With the deaths of the two Westerville officers on Saturday, at least five police officers were shot and killed in the line of duty this week.
Officer Chase Maddox, 26, of the Locust Grove, Ga., police department was shot and killed on Friday as he was trying to serve a warrant with two other officers. The suspect was killed. Mr. Maddox was survived by a child and his pregnant wife.
In Richardson, Tex., Officer David Sherrard, 37, was shot and killed on Wednesday while responding to a disturbance at an apartment complex.
The suspect was believed to have fatally shot an acquaintance before firing at police officers as they entered the apartment. Officer Sherrard, a married father of two daughters, was the first officer killed in the line of duty in the department’s 63-year history.
Deputy Sheriff Micah Flick, 34, of the El Paso County sheriff’s office in Colorado Springs, Colo., was shot and killed on Monday when a car theft suspect fired an automatic weapon at officers, according to the authorities. He was survived by his wife and 7-year-old twins.
