A helicopter crashed in Benton County this afternoon, killing one person on a crew that was filming a movie in Iowa.
KCRG television chopper pilot Bobby Ratliff flew to the scene soon afterwards to survey the wreckage. “It does look like a serious crash, not a precautionary landing,” Ratliff told viewers. “There is a lot of destruction to the fuselage of the helicopter, a lot of parts scattered over a wide area. So we have a serious accident.”
A little after one this afternoon the call went out that the film crew’s chopper had crashed with a pilot, a producer and photographer on board. Witnesses say the helicopter was flying low while they filmed a parade scene for the movie “The Final Season.” Observers say the chopper hit some power lines and went down.
One person was killed in the crash; two others were critically injured. They were airlifted by a medical helicopter to an area hospital. The rural area where the chopper went down is at 33rd Street and Highway 151 in Walford, a town of 1200 people about seven miles southwest of Cedar Rapids. State troopers have the area roped off, waiting for federal investigators to arrive on the scene.
(KCRG television contributed to this report.)