More detail on this person: State: Helicopter
hunts for shuttle debris halted after fatal crash
BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
HOUSTON - Helicopters searching for space shuttle
debris in East Texas were grounded Friday after a
U.S. Forest Service chopper looking for pieces of
Columbia crashed in the Angelina National Forest,
killing two men aboard the aircraft and injuring
three others.
The National Transportation Safety Board sent an
investigator to the remote site accessible only
over muddy, rut-filled stretches of trail about 35
miles east of Lufkin. All-terrain vehicles were
brought in to assist crews trying to clear a road
into the forest. "Reports were that it lost power
to the rotors," said Federal Aviation
Administration spokesman John Clabes. NASA
Administrator Sean O'Keefe said Friday two
witnesses told officials the helicopter's engine
just stopped and it took a nose dive about 4:30
p.m. Thursday. Charles Krenek, 48, an aviation
specialist with the Texas Forest Service, was
seated next to Papillon Grand Canyon Helicopters'
pilot, Jules F. "Buzz: Mier Jr., whose Arizona
employer had been hired by the U.S. Forest Service
to help in the search. Both men were killed.
Three others seated behind them in the Bell 407
helicopter survived but remained hospitalized
Friday at Memorial Medical Center of East Texas in
Lufkin, about 125 miles northeast of Houston. Two
workers based at Kennedy Space Center in Florida,
Ronnie Dale and Richard Lange, were in fair
condition. Dale had a punctured lung and Lange had
shoulder and hip injuries, Keefe said. Matt
Tschacher of the U.S. Forest Service in South
Dakota was in stable condition, said a
spokeswoman at the hospital. Keefe said
Tschacher suffered a spinal injury.
Papillon chief pilot Chuck Rush said Mier, 56, who
spent a decade teaching flight instrumentation
after serving as an Army pilot in Vietnam, was
doing what he loved to do. "He was an extremely
precise individual," Rush said. "He used to be an
accountant. When you asked him a question, he
would say, 'Let me get back to you on that," and
then he would get back to you with this huge
mound of graphs and charts." The challenge of
finding shuttle debris by spending hours at a time
in the air searching a 2-mile grid along lines
marked 30 feet apart attracted Mier to the effort,
Rush said.
This information was last updated 05/18/2016
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Date posted on this site: 03/10/2024
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