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Groton Daily Independent
Monday, Feb. 12, 2018 ~ Vol. 25 - No. 214 ~ 22 of 39
Fujimoto, a Las Vegas photographer who was doing a wedding shoot at the time of the crash, said he suddenly saw people running toward the edge of a gulch. He said he heard gasps and went to check out the commotion coming from about 600 feet (183 meters) below.
“In the gulch, there was a helicopter, ames, smoke,” he said. “It was horrible.”
He said that’s when two or three small explosions went off in the wreckage and people weren’t sure what to do. He said some other pilots ying helicopters in the area at the time of the crash descended into the gulch and delivered water and rst aid supplies.
Fujimoto said he saw two badly injured women and one of them was yelling out a man’s name. He said one of them “was pretty much burned all over.”
“Her hands were bloody and body was just more burned,” Fujimoto said.
The other woman, he said, was “covered in blood” and was bleeding from her head or neck.
Fujimoto said he has taken helicopter rides for photo shoots for the past few years and generally felt
safe. He said the crash aftermath is the worst thing he’s ever witnessed.
The tour company promised full cooperation with crash investigators and offered its sympathy.
“It is with extreme sadness we extend our heartfelt sympathy to the families involved in this accident,”
Papillon Group CEO Brenda Halvorson said in a statement. “Our top priority is the care and needs of our passengers and our staff.”
The Nevada-based company’s website says it ies roughly 600,000 passengers a year around the Grand Canyon and on other tours. It notes that it “abides by ight safety rules and regulations that substantially exceed the regulations required by the Federal Aviation Administration.”
In August 2001, a Grand Canyon tour helicopter operated by Papillon crashed and burned near Meadview, Arizona. The pilot and ve passengers died. An NTSB report issued in 2004 blamed the pilot’s decision to descend too fast and too close to the scenic Grand Wash Cliffs.
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Associated Press writer Terry Tang contributed to this report.
Trump aide con dent Democratic memo will be released By CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee are prepared to black out parts of their memo about the FBI’s Russia investigation to ensure there’s no harmful spilling of secrets, then try again to get President Donald Trump to let it come out. A White House aide said he’s con dent it will be released once Democrats “clean it up.”
That possible nudge toward progress came as both sides traded steamy recriminations over the matter.
Rep. Adam Schiff of California, senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Trump is put- ting his personal interest above the country’s in blocking a memo that “completely undermines his claim of vindication” in special counsel Robert Mueller’s continuing investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign’s relationship with Russian interests and Russia’s meddling in the election. “The president doesn’t want the public to see the underlying facts,” Schiff said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
The White House legislative director, Marc Short, countered that Democrats padded their memo with sensitive information, knowing Trump would stop its release, in an effort to make him look obstructionist. “We’re not afraid of transparency,” Short said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” ‘’I think you’re going to see
us release the memo.”
Trump overrode strong Justice Department objections when he declassi ed a Republican memo alleg-
ing an abuse of surveillance powers in the FBI’s Russia investigation. The FBI expressed “grave concerns” about the memo’s accuracy and the Justice Department said in advance that its release, without proper review, would be “extraordinarily reckless.”
But Trump has blocked the Democratic document, which tries to counter the Republican allegations of surveillance excesses. The president has the authority to keep such information under wraps, and exer- cised it only against the Democrats.