Two helicopters collide near McMinnville, Oregon, killing a 22-year-old flight instructor, her UK student and a Newberg pilot on a test flight

Three people died on Thursday afternoon when two helicopters collided in the air over farmland southeast of McMinnville, Oregon in Yamhill County. The collision happened at about 2:10 p.m., roughly a mile east of McMinnville Municipal Airport, according to the National Transportation Safety Board, as reported by KATU. Both aircraft fell into a private field and came to rest about 100 yards apart, KATU reports. The city lies about 35 miles southwest of Portland, according to CBS News.

The Yamhill County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release that responders found “a 1995 Robinson R22 helicopter and a 2018 Airbus AS350B3 helicopter crashed in a field adjacent to Highway 233.” Medical and law enforcement personnel, the release says, “confirmed there were two occupants in the Robinson helicopter and one occupant in the Airbus. All three were deceased.” Deputies, McMinnville police and Oregon State Police troopers responded, according to the sheriff’s office, and roads around the site closed for hours; KPTV reported that both lanes of Highway 233 had shut down Thursday afternoon.

Sheriff Sam Elliott’s office named the flight instructor aboard the Robinson as Maddie Aasbo, 22, of Texas, and the Airbus pilot as Tyler Delane Sturdevant, 38, of Newberg. Officials held back the name of the Robinson’s student pilot until his relatives could hear the news. On Friday night, Elliott identified him as Christopher James Joughin, 31, of the United Kingdom, and said his family in Zimbabwe had received notice, according to KATU. BBC News, citing the Statesman Journal, also places Joughin’s family in Zimbabwe.

At a briefing outside the sheriff’s office in McMinnville at 6 p.m. Friday, which the NTSB had announced on X earlier that afternoon, NTSB air safety investigator Grant Mills laid out what investigators know so far. The Robinson R22 had gone up on an instructional flight, he said, while Sturdevant flew the Airbus alone on a check flight after maintenance, according to KATU. “Witnesses that were near the accident site are reporting that the helicopters were about 500 feet above the ground when they collided,” Mills said, as quoted by KATU. BBC News reports that Mills could not give a cause or comment on the weather at the time, but confirmed that the collision happened in the air.

Mills also described how traffic moves around the field. McMinnville Municipal Airport has no air traffic control tower, he said, so pilots use a shared radio frequency to announce their positions, departures and arrivals for others nearby to hear, according to KATU and BBC News. Mills did not say whether either crew made such calls before the collision, and neither outlet reports any finding on that question.

One witness described the moment of impact to KPTV. Leo Rodriquez said he had climbed onto the roof of his barn to work when he heard the aircraft. “I heard the helicopter noise, I bent over to do something and then boom I looked up and everything was going down,” he told the station, calling it a midair explosion. “There was a larger one [helicopter] intact still, the tail end of it was struck and then it turned and it propelled down and the other one dropped straight down.” This desk could not independently confirm his account, and the NTSB has not described the sequence of the collision.

Two local aviation companies spoke publicly. Jerry Trimble Helicopters, a flight school based at the McMinnville airport, said one of its aircraft took part in the collision, according to CBS News. “Our hearts and thoughts are with the individuals involved, their families and everyone affected by the event,” the school said in its statement. Precision Helicopters, which remembered Sturdevant on Friday as a senior pilot and mentor, said in a statement quoted by KATU: “Tyler has touched countless lives, not only through his love of flying, but through the many pilots he mentored, encouraged, and helped along the way.” The company added: “The impact he made on this aviation community will never be forgotten.”

The investigation has only begun. The NTSB and the Federal Aviation Administration will examine flight data, maintenance records and weather conditions, according to KATU, and specialists will try to retrieve data from equipment taken from the Airbus at a laboratory, Mills said. Crews worked into Friday evening to remove both helicopters from the field. The NTSB expects to publish a preliminary report in about 30 days, while a final report on the probable cause could take 12 to 24 months, KATU reports. The agency asks anyone with video or information about the crash to email witness@ntsb.gov.

Early accounts of the crash differed on several details. An FAA statement provided to CBS News on Thursday said that only the pilot flew aboard the Robinson and that the Airbus carried two people; the sheriff’s office and the NTSB later described the reverse. The sheriff’s first alert placed the crash near Southeast Highway 154 and Stringtown Road, while its later release named Highway 233 and Southeast Cruickshank Road. The NTSB’s first post on X on Thursday called the Airbus an AS350B2, while the sheriff’s release lists an AS350B3, and the FAA, via CBS, used the model name H125.