NTSB releases preliminary report on fatal Pendleton County helicopter crash

HUNTERSVILLE, W.Va. (WBOY) — Two weeks after a helicopter crash in West Virginia's eastern panhandle left one person dead, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has released its preliminary report on the incident. The report states that on July 10 at around 7:10 a.m., a Sikorsky S-76D helicopter departed a private hangar near Glenville and was bound for Huntersville to pick up the owner at his property in Pendleton County. The helicopter was owned by Gilmer County-based WACO Oil & Gas. Witnesses who spoke to NTSB officials said that conditions were very foggy on the morning of the crash, with some saying that they were only able to see the "belly" of the helicopter as it flew overhead. At around 7:45 a.m., the helicopter crashed into the side of a nearby mountain about .15 nautical miles southeast of its destination landing zone. Witnesses told the NTSB that the helicopter pitched up just prior to crashing. The report said that a majority of the helicopter was consumed by the fire that followed the initial impact. It added that the helicopter's cockpit voice recorder/flight data recorder were able to be recovered alongside two other devices "with the capability of recording data in nonvolatile memory." Those devices were sent to the NTSB Vehicle Recorders Laboratory for data extraction and download. You can read the full report here.