A United States of America aviation lawyer, Robert Clifford, has described as avoidable, the tragic helicopter crash that claimed the lives of the Group Chief Executive Officer of Access Holdings, Herbert Wigwe, and other prominent Nigerians in California on Friday.
Clifford, the Founder and Senior Partner of Clifford Law Offices in Chicago, disclosed this in a press statement posted on the company’s website on Wednesday.
Wigwe, his wife Doreen, his son Chizi, and a former Group Chairman of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, Abimola Ogunbanjo, lost their when the helicopter they were traveling in fell off the sky and crashed.
The Airbus Helicopter EC130B4, carrying six occupants, including two crew members, went down at a border town between California and Nevada.
Clifford’s statement came after the US National Transportation Safety Board transferred the aircraft wreckage to another location in the US for comprehensive laboratory examination and analysis.
The preliminary report of the crash is expected to be ready in four weeks, according to NTSB.
Clifford said: “The crash of a helicopter that killed six people including a top Nigerian banker and his family along the California-Nevada border Saturday night immediately strikes one as a tragedy that may have been avoided given the known weather conditions at that time.”
Clifford was the Lead Counsel in the crash of a Boeing 737 MAX8 plane in Ethiopia which killed all the 157 souls on board from 35 countries on March 10, 2019.
The US attorney, who claimed to have also represented victims of many helicopter crashes questioned the decision of the pilots and others to allegedly take off in what was described as difficult weather conditions.
There were media reports that during the crash at 10pm on Friday, residents of the area reported rain and wintry weather conditions.
However, Clifford expressed hopes that the US National Transportation Safety Board would unravel if the crash was avoidable or not after its ongoing investigations.
“The National Transportation Safety Board investigators will thoroughly examine all aspects of what led up to the crash and ultimately will use their expertise to determine the probable cause of this crash to see if it was avoidable,” Clifford said.
He added, “It is always a horrific tragedy when innocent lives are lost in an aviation disaster.”
Earlier in a press conference on Sunday, the NTSB revealed that witnesses reported “wintry mix” weather conditions, including rain, at the time of the crash.
A Board Member of NTSB, Michael Graham stated, “We currently have a meteorologist working on our team and we were working to analyse and get the exact weather conditions at that time.
“Of course, that’s out in the middle of the desert so we’ll have to find the closest reporting stations nearby to be able to give any accurate report,” he said.
Meanwhile, the NTSB in a statement on Wednesday urged the Federal Aviation Administration to mandate the retrofitting of all existing aeroplanes equipped with a cockpit voice recorder and a flight data recorder.
This call for action by the NTSB was in response to the Alaska Airlines accident on January 5, 2024, where crucial data was overwritten.
The proposed upgrade involves enhancing these devices to record 25 hours of audio, a significant increase from the current standard of two hours.
