A preliminary report is out from the National Transportation Safety Board about the Mercy Air Med helicopter crash earlier this month that killed all three on board.
The preliminary report released on Wednesday by the NTSB does not point to a cause of the crash, but details the information that investigators will be using to determine what caused the helicopter to go down in a farm field about a mile north of Ventura shortly before 9 o’clock on the night of January 2nd.
Some of the statements from witnesses show that weather conditions could have been icy at the time. One person who responded to the crash as a member of the Ventura Fire Department stated that he was going to drive his truck to the crash site but couldn’t since there was a coating of ice that his wipers couldn’t remove, eventually getting a car out of his garage to use.
That same person also observed a Clear Lake police car slide through an intersection at U.S. Highway 18. Another witness was a pilot leaving the Mason City Municipal Airport who said there was a layer of ice on his car as well as roads being icy.
See the report here: www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery
By Bob Fisher, KRIB, Mason City