The Eurocopter crash that killed the Group Chief Executive Officer of Access Holdings, Herbert Wigwe, and five others in California, United States could have been prevented.
This was disclosed by a US aviation lawyer and founder of the Clifford Law Offices in Chicago, Robert Clifford, on Wednesday.
The 57-year-old Rivers statesman Herbert Wigwe was heading to the city of Las Vegas in a Eurocopter EC 130 chopper to watch Super Bowl, the annual league championship game of the National Football League (NFL) of the United States when the aircraft crashed.
Wigwe, his wife, Doreen; their son, Chizi Wigwe; former Nigerian Exchange Group Chairman, Abimbola Ogunbanjo, along with two other members of the crew when the Airbus EC130 helicopter crashed close to the California-Nevada border near Halloran Springs on Friday at 10 a.m. local time.
In a statement posted on the company’s website, Clifford said the crash was a tragedy that may have been avoided given the known weather conditions at that time.
Clifford served as Lead Counsel during the March 10, 2019, crash in Ethiopia of a Boeing 737 MAX8, which claimed the lives of all 157 people on board from 35 different nationalities.
The US attorney, who has reportedly represented victims from other air crashes, questioned the judgment of the pilots and others to take flight in what was characterized as challenging weather circumstances.
According to media sources, residents experienced rain and wintry weather on Friday night at about ten o’clock in the evening.
Clifford however voiced optimism that the US National Transportation Safety Board’s continuing investigations will reveal whether or not the tragedy that ended Wigwe was preventable.
“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.”
“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.
“It is always a horrific tragedy when innocent lives are lost in an aviation disaster.”
