By Ihechi Enyinnaya
The Airbus Eurocopter EC130 helicopter which killed former Access Bank CEO, Herbert Wigwe, his wife , son and others and three others, was not equipped with a cockpit voice recorder or a flight data recorder, a spokesman of the
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has revealed.
Daily Review Online gathered that the French-made helicopter was chartered from Orbit Air, LLC in Burbank, a company that says it specializes in “Design, Retrofit, Fabrication, Qual Test, Lease Return, Ground/Flight Test, certifying aircraft Avionics, Interior, LRUs and various equipment to the latest FAA and EASA requirements.”
Orbit Air is yet to respond to inquiries from Daily Review Online as at the time of going to the press.
The chopper was heading from Palm Springs Airport in California to Boulder City, Nevada, about 80 miles from Las Vegas when it crashed late last Saturday near Interstate 15 in Southern California’s Mojave Desert. All six people on board were killed, including Bamofin Abimbola Ogunbanjo, former chair of NGX Group, the Nigerian stock exchange and two pilots.
An NTSB spokesman said all the major components of the aircraft have been found. The debris from the crash was about 100 yards long, according to reports.
Logs from the California Highway Patrol show there was rain and snow in the area at about the time of the crash. Witnesses reported that it was raining with a “wintry mix” at the time of the crash, according to the NTSB. People also reported a fire on the helicopter plus some downed power lines.
Meanwhile, Robert Clifford, Internationally Recognized Aviation Attorney, says the crash would have been avoided given the known weather conditions at that time.
He said: “The crash of a helicopter that killed six people including a top Nigerian banker and his family along the California-Nevada border Saturday night immediately strikes one as a tragedy that may have been avoided given the known weather conditions at that time.”
Clifford, Lead Counsel in the crash in Ethiopia of a Boeing 737 MAX8 that killed all 157 on board from 35 countries in a statement sent to Daily Review Online, said: “The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators will thoroughly examine all aspects of what led up to the crash and ultimately will use their expertise to determine the probable cause of this crash to see if it was avoidable,” Clifford said. “It is always a horrific tragedy when innocent lives are lost in an aviation disaster.”
Wigwe, a highly successful businessman and considered a “visionary leader,” also had interests in the education sector. His private university, founded in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta region where he was from, is scheduled to open in September. Last year he was quoted as saying the university was “an opportunity for me to give back to society.”