Helicopter Crashes Into Crater Lake

A helicopter crashed into Crater Lake Saturday morning. It was not known how many people were aboard or where the flight had originated.

The helicopter, a single-engine American Euro AS-350-BA, went down about 9:30 a.m., said Jeff Guzzetti, air safety investigator with the National Transportation and Safety Board.

“Rescue personnel are at the scene, but the aircraft has not been pulled up out of the water. And at this point, we don’t know if it can be pulled up out of the water,” Guzzetti said.

The crash was witnessed by several people at Crater Lake National Park, Ranger Kent Taylor said.

“Eyewitnesses reported seeing the helicopter fly into the caldera from the south. It flew out to Wizard Island on the west side of the lake, and was flying back to the south side of the caldera when it crashed,” Taylor said.

The helicopter crashed about one mile from the lake’s shoreline, below Crater Lake Lodge, he said.

Weather conditions in the area were clear at the time of the accident.

Documents recovered from the scene provided investigators with the craft’s tail number and identified its owner as American Euro Copter of Grand Prairie, Texas, Guzzetti said.

The NTSB was questioning the helicopter manufacturing company about the craft, he said.

“We’re just trying to find out how many people were on board, where it came from, where was it going to,” Guzzetti said.

Debris was floating on the lake surface and rangers had set up booms to contain fuel and oil, park superintendent Al Hendricks said.

No bodies had been recovered.

Taylor could not estimate when they would know whether the wreckage could be recovered. The lake depth at the crash site is estimated at about 1,000 feet.

Crater Lake, in southern Oregon’s Klamath County, has a surface area of about 21 square miles and sits in the caldera of an extinct volcano.

The lake, with depth at some locations estimated at nearly 2,000 feet, is one of the deepest in the world.