June 23 (UPI) — Six people were killed in a helicopter crash Wednesday evening in West Virginia, officials said.
Sonya Porter, the emergency management deputy in Logan County, which is located about 65 miles southwest of Charleston, confirmed to WCHS that six people aboard the aircraft had died.
The Federal Aviation Administration identified the aircraft as a Bell UH-1B helicopter, stating it crashed at around 5 p.m. with six people aboard near Route 17.
The Logan County Office of Emergency Management said that due to the crash Route 17 near the mountainous Kelly Hollow has been indefinitely closed.
The cause of the crash is unknown, but earlier Wednesday the office had warned on its Facebook page that Logan County was under a “severe thunderstorm watch.”
The National Transportation Safety Board tweeted it was dispatching a team of five investigators and a family assistance specialist to the site.
Gov. Jim Justice tweeted that he and his wife, Cathy Justice, were “praying for the families of those killed in this tragic helicopter crash.”
This is a developing story.
