Crash Survivor Marks Year of Recovery

More than a year after her sightseeing helicopter crashed in the Grand Canyon, survivor Chana Daskal remains in the New York Weill Cornell burn unit at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, recovering from the third-degree burns she suffered over 85% of her body.

“With the one-year mark, it is a pretty emotional time,” said Gary C. Robb, her attorney. “A lot of people didn’t think she was going to make it. She struggles every day. She is a triumph of the human spirit and the desire to live.”

Federal investigators still are reviewing what caused the Aug. 10, 2001, Papillon Grand Canyon Helicopters tour crash near Meadview, Ariz., about 100 miles east of Las Vegas.

Daskal, 26, who is from the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Seagate in Brooklyn, N.Y., was the only survivor of the crash. Five New York City tourists, including her husband, were killed, along with the pilot.

The National Transportation Safety Board’s preliminary report said Daskal told rescuers that the aircraft “got quiet and fell from the sky.” The NTSB has said the investigation has been hampered because much of the American Eurocopter AS350 B2 helicopter was destroyed in the crash. A spokeswoman for the agency said a final finding on the cause of the crash may not be released until fall.

Meanwhile, Daskal has undergone 42 operations. Most were skin grafts, but she also has had her left leg and right foot amputated and operations to stabilize her back, which was broken in the crash. She is paralyzed from the waist down.

Daskal spent seven months in the University Medical Center burn unit in Las Vegas before she was taken to Brooklyn in February, spending only about three weeks at home before being transferred to the Staten Island University Hospital intensive care unit.

Her sons, 4-year-old Eli and 1-year-old Avi, are living with Daskal’s twin sister, Brache Rosenberg. Daskal has incurred $4.5 million in medical expenses, Robb said.

“She is a medical miracle. Her doctors have repeatedly said that what she has gone through and how she has been able to progress is just remarkable,” Robb said. “She wants to see her kids grow up. She told me, ‘I need to be alive to raise my children.’ ”

Daskal has filed a lawsuit in Clark County, Nev., District Court against Papillon Airways Inc., based in Grand Canyon, Ariz. The lawsuit, which alleges pilot error and a faulty engine caused the crash, also names the pilot’s estate and American Eurocopter Corp. and Turbomeca Engine Corp., two manufacturers of helicopter and engine parts in Texas.