Four Oregon family members were identified Sunday as those killed when their private helicopter hit a slackline strung across an Arizona canyon and crashed.
David McCarty, 59, was piloting the MD 369FF chopper, taking his nieces — Rachel McCarty, 23, Faith McCarty, 21, and Katelyn Heideman, 22 — for a ride, The Arizona Republic reported. He was due to get married this weekend, according to People.
An eyewitness saw the chopper hit the line, also known as a highline, strung across Telegraph Canyon, just south of Superior and about 64 miles east of Phoenix, around 11 a.m. Saturday and called 911, the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. Responding deputies “visually located a single crashed private helicopter” that had taken off from Pegasus Airpark in Queen Creek, Arizona, about 29 miles west of the canyon, the sheriff’s office said. It took hours for teams and Federal Aviation Administration investigators to reach the remote site on foot.
The National Transportation Safety Board and the FAA placed a temporary flight restriction over the area and are investigating the crash.
“Preliminary evidence indicates a recreational slackline more than one kilometer long had been strung across the mountain range,” the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office said.
Slacklines are 1- to 2-inch-wide lengths of nylon or polyester webbing stretched tightrope style between two high points, usually trees. The “sport and art” of walking from one end to the other is part balance training, part recreation and part “moving meditation,” according to the group Slackline U.S.
A line like the one across the canyon requires posting a Notice to Airmen with the FAA, and a tightrope obstruction warning to pilots was in place when the crash occurred, The Arizona Republic reported.
Another group, the International Slacklining Association, noted that no highliners were present when the helicopter hit, and said aviation markers had been attached to the line.
David McCarty owns La Grande, Ore.-based Columbia Basin Helicopters, the La Grande Observer reported, as well as a home in Queen Creek, a Phoenix suburb. A family member noted on social media that he had been piloting helicopters for more than 40 years.
“They were all so loved,” Katelyn Heideman’s mother and Rachel and Faith McCarty’s aunt, Mary Jane Heideman, texted to The Arizona Republic. “The girls had such bright futures. It’s just hard to fathom this.”
“All the love and support is welcome,” wrote Elizabeth Gallup, who said in a social media post that Rachel and Faith were her “two baby sisters” and that McCarty and Heideman were her uncle and cousin. “We truly have no words right now. They are all in heaven together.”
With News Wire Services
