A possible midair collision brought down a firefighting helicopter Sunday in the Cabazon area, and one person was reportedly confirmed dead.
Video from over the Riverside County crash scene showed a burn area and, nearby, what appeared to be a blade from a chopper on a hillside just past an area of charred brush. Other wreckage nearby, atop a road, was barely recognizable as a helicopter in the darkening skies of the remote crash scene early Sunday evening.
It was not clear whether the burn area was from the fire that brought the chopper to the area or the crash.
For hours, officials did not release information on injuries. But late Sunday night, a KABC-TV reporter at the scene reported that officials told her at least one person had died.
Late Sunday night, there was confusion about whether one or two craft were involved in the incident. At times, there were media reports and social media accounts of a midair collision but without clarity regarding what had collided with the one craft confirmed as having gone down.
The confirmed stricken craft was contracted by Cal Fire on an as-needed basis, according to KCAL-TV. National Transportation Safety Board investigators were reportedly already at the scene.
The crash occurred in the area of Pipeline Road and Apache Trail, just south of the 10 Freeway near the Morongo Casino Resort and Cabazon shopping outlets.
An early alert on the crash was tweeted by the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.
At 7:20 pm, “deputies responded to the area of Pipeline Road and Apache Trail in #Cabazon reference an air emergency,” the department tweeted. “1 plane crashed at the location. The circs surrounding the crash are unknown at this time.”
Capt. Richard Cordova told KCAL-TV that information was being gathered about what had occurred, including the extent of any injuries.
“What we do know is that we did have — we had fire in the Cabazon area [that] this helicopter was at,” Cordova said.
Cabazon is a unincorporated community in Riverside County, about 90 miles east of downtown L.A.
This is a developing story.