Copter Hit Rocks Before Crash, Official Says

A Grand Canyon tour helicopter scraped a rock outcropping before crashing into a hillside, killing the pilot and five passengers, a sheriff’s official said Tuesday.

The sole survivor of the Friday crash, Chana Daskal, a 25-year-old mother of two, remained in critical condition at a Las Vegas hospital with burns over 80% of her body.

Steve Johnson, Mohave County, Ariz., sheriff’s spokesman, said a sheriff’s detective--an experienced aircraft and vehicle crash investigator--found that the helicopter struck hillside boulders, traveled a short distance downhill and hit the ground.

Sheriff’s investigators don’t know what caused the helicopter to crash into the rocks, Johnson said.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators said it was premature to make any comment about the significance of the crash marks near Meadview, Ariz.

“We are still in the information-gathering portion of the investigation,” said Lauren Peduzzi, NTSB spokeswoman.

Johnson said most of the damage to the aircraft was from fire, not the result of impact.

The Maricopa County medical examiner’s office in Phoenix disclosed Tuesday that David Daskal and Avi and Barbara Wajsbaum died from blunt force trauma, Aryeh Zvi Fastag burned to death and Shayie Lichtenstein died of head injuries. They were all Brooklyn, N.Y., natives and were mourned Monday by several hundred people during Orthodox Jewish ceremonies in Brooklyn.

An autopsy revealed that the pilot, Kevin Innocenti, 27, of Henderson, Nev., burned to death, the sheriff’s spokesman said.

Between 75 and 100 family members, Papillon Airways Inc. employees and others from the air tour industry attended a memorial service Tuesday at the helicopter company’s hangar in Las Vegas.

In Las Vegas, University Medical Center doctors were closely watching Chana Daskal, David’s widow. She was reported to be heavily sedated while being monitored for swelling and infection from her burns.