BUFFALO, N.Y. — The National Transportation Safety Board on Friday released a preliminary report on the helicopter crash that killed two Buffalo-area businessmen, Mark Croce and Michael Capriotto.
According to the report, there was no flight plan on record for a flight that began at Martin State Airport in Baltimore and supposed to end at Buffalo Niagara International Airport.
The report says the January 9 flight climbed to 2,300 feet, according to information provided by the Federal Aviation Administration, and remained steady until an in-flight break-up near Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.
The last recorded altitude for the flight was about 1,150 feet.
In the NTSB report, one witness was about 1,000 feet from the accident site, "reported hearing and seeing a low flying helicopter, which was 'struggling to fly.'
She described "a high-pitched noise as if the rotor was having difficulty turning," before hearing a loud boom accompanied by a flash of light.
Another witness in the report, about 800 feet from the crash site, described a "thumping" sound that slowed before he "heard a loud bang, which shook his house." He also told investigators of a "percussion" sound.
The report says the helicopter had a Rolls-Royce engine monitoring unit.
Kevin Balys owns KGB Aviation Solutions in West Seneca. He's an expert when it comes to flight data and cockpit voice recorders.
"The engine monitoring unit will give you the engine temperatures. It will give you speeds of the engine, the fuel, the valves, where things were set, but it won't show you what the pilot was doing. It won't tell you what the pilot was saying, so in a case like this, it would be really helpful to have either a video or a cockpit voice recorder," Balys said.
The report gives no indication the helicopter had either one of those.
"Unfortunately, the flight data recorder was not on this aircraft because it was flying under 91 Rules, and there were less than 10 passenger seats. In cases like that, a recorder is not required," Balys said.
A section of main rotor blade, tail rotor assembly, tailboom, main rotor mast, and other pieces of the helicopter from the crash scene were collected and kept for examination.
"It sounded like they're going to have to depend strictly on eyewitness and the wreckage. So, when they get to the wreckage, they're going to be able to tell things from looking at the parts as they pick them up and bring them into their labs and determine what broke apart, where it happened, and why," Balys said.
Again, the NTSB says there was no flight plan filed.