The names of the two victims of a helicopter crash Friday just off a Table Rock Lake cove have been released by the Missouri Water Patrol.
24-year-old Wayne Holtmeier of St. Louis and 26-year-old Adam Long of Farmington, Missouri, were piloting a Robinson R-44 helicopter from California to Illinois when a fisherman says he saw the aircraft nose dive into the woods about a third of mile from Mills Branch Cove in the southwest corner of Taney County.
The pair had stopped for fuel in Shawnee, Oklahoma, and were planning to stop again in West Plains.
The FAA is investigating the incident.
No word yet on what caused the crash.
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It's not beginning to the holiday weekend Taney County officials had been hoping for.
A helicopter crash along Table Rock Lake killed the only two people on board.
The FAA says the helicopter is a Robinson R-44.
The crash happened in the far southwest corner of the county, close to the Arkansas line near Mills Branch Cove on Table Rock Lake.
It’s easy to understand why details from the helicopter crash that killed two are unknown- even by the officials investigating it.
“It is a heavily wooded area,” explains Missouri Water Patrol Captain Gary Haupt.
The crash site is practically invisible.
It’s buried in the forest about a third of a mile east of that Table Rock Lake cove.
Avid fisherman Brad Thomas knows the area well.
“It splits into two separate coves. The one to the left narrows down. You'd probably have to have a canoe to get way back there. There's virtually no other way to get to it,” says Thomas.
We traveled to the scene by private boat, but the Missouri Water Patrol shuttled law enforcement on boats to the cove, which is the best point of access to the crash site.
Haupt says, “Right now our goal is to get as much information as possible."
A fisherman told sheriff’s deputies he saw the helicopter take a nose-dive into the woods.
Where it landed was so difficult to determine that St. John’s hospital in Springfield used its life flight helicopter to spot the accident and then direct law enforcement.
The NTSB will take over the investigation Saturday.
According to the FAA the helicopter is registered to the Robinson Helicopter Company out of the Los Angeles area.