Carson Helicopters president contests government report

Charging the National Transportation Safety Board with trying to make Carson Helicopters Inc. a scapegoat for the 2008 helicopter crash which killed nine people, the company's president rejected the board's conclusion that excess weight and lack of oversight caused the accident. In an open letter released this morning, company President Franklin Carson in Perkasie, Pa., said the firm has, until now, maintained silence to allow the investigation to proceed. But the board's "arbitrary and one-sided" hearing last month in Washington, D.C., forced the company to go public, he said. Carson said the board ignored testimony by co-pilot William "Bill" Coultas, 46, of Cave Junction, that the crash was caused by the loss of power in the No. 2 engine shortly during takeoff. They also ignored Coultas' actual air temperature at the scene to fit "their preconceived narrative," he wrote. Coultas, the only surviving crew member, expressed similar concerns in an interview with the Mail Tribune immediately following the NTSB hearing last month. Moreover, the NTSB lost the aircraft's fuel control unit early in the investigation and failed to investigate that loss...more