The second pilot involved in a midair helicopter collision in New Jersey has died, authorities said Monday.
Two choppers collided in the skies above Hammonton Township on Sunday morning, sending both aircraft to the ground in a horrifying wreck about 30 miles southeast of Philadelphia.
Cops identified the victims Monday as Michael Greenberg, a 71-year-old Sewell resident, and Kenneth Kirsch, a 65-year-old Carney’s Point man. No one else was on board the helicopters.
Greenberg was pronounced dead at the scene, while Kirsch was rushed to a Camden hospital with life-threatening injuries, which he later succumbed to, police said.
Witnesses told police the two helicopters were flying close together, apparently in tandem, about a mile from Hammonton Municipal Airport. They crashed on a farm, and one chopper burst into flames, but no one on the ground was hurt.
“They were just at our café having breakfast. They’re regulars, they come in, they seem to be very nice people,” local restaurant owner Sal Silipino told Philadelphia ABC affiliate WPVI. “I saw one go down, and then I saw the other one go down and it was a little disbelief, like, ‘Is that really happening?’”
Kirsch was flying an Enstrom F-28A helicopter, while Greenberg was flying an Enstrom 280C model, police said. Though the aircraft went down in a rural area, the collision was seen by numerous bystanders.
“Immediately, the first helicopter went from right side up to upside down and started rapidly spinning, falling out of the air,” Hammonton resident Dan Dameshek told Philadelphia NBC affiliate WCAU. “And then it looked like the second helicopter was okay for a second, and then it sounded like another snap or something…and then that helicopter started rapidly spinning out of the air.”
