Helicopter Crash Sparking Wildfire

Filed in archive Aviation News on August 3, 2007

Four people are missing when the helicopter they were in crashed outside of Easton, Washington. The crashed started a wildfire, which is hindering rescuers to search for survivors.

A helicopter carrying four people crashed, sparking a wildfire in dry forest that prevented attempts to rescue any possible survivors, authorities said.

"Fighting the fire is the priority right now, because it's preventing us from" reaching the helicopter, Kittitas County Undersheriff Clayton Myers said. He said authorities believed all four were dead but had not been able to confirm it.

Myers said the flight was believed to have originated at Boeing Field in Seattle before Thursday's crash.

The identities of the people aboard were not immediately available.

A federal aviation administration spokeswoman in the Seattle area said she had no information on the flight.

The helicopter crashed about three miles south of Easton on the east slope of the Cascades. The fire spanned an estimated 300 acres by Thursday night. No homes were immediately threatened, Myers said.

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