Well, I don't think I knew the pilots, pretty much 100% sure I did not, but I do know the company and the machine. It belonged to the first flight school I attended.

Story here.

Transportation board investigating fatal chopper crash
Names of two victims have not been released
Posted By Brandi Cramer
Updated 13 hours ago

Two people died in a helicopter crash in a heavily wooded area between Elk Lake and Gowganda Friday afternoon.

The aircraft, a Bell 206 B, left North Bay en route to Kapuskasing with two people on board.

"In the area of Elk Lake, the aircraft hit a tower and subsequently impacted the ground," said Ken Webster, a regional senior investigator with the Transportation Safety Board of Canada.

The aircraft belonged to Essential Helicopters Flight Training School.

The names of the victims have not yet been released, pending notification of next of kin but Webster did identify them as employees of the North Bay company.

Ontario Provincial Police received an emergency call from a berry picker at about 2 p.m. Friday. It took crews about 50 minutes to arrive at the scene, according to an OPP media release.

"It's a heavily wooded area with a rough bush road," Const. Rock Belanger said Friday evening. "You're in the middle of the bush."

Terry Fiset, the reeve of James Township and a volunteer with the Elk Lake Volunteer Fire Department, responded to the scene Friday providing emergency response services and equipment.

Fiset could not comment other than to say the chief of the department would issue a statement in the coming days.

"Our deepest sympathies go out to the families," he said Saturday afternoon.

Elk Lake is 130 kilometres north of North Bay. Gowganda is about 30 kilometres west of Elk Lake.

"We're still looking into weather conditions," Webster said, adding the investigation, including whether there was any sort of radio communication or safety deficiencies and interviews with the company, will continue this week.

Provincial police crews from Temiskaming and Englehart, as well as the OPP helicopter also responded to the scene.

I won't say that this kind of thing doesn't make me really angry. It's senseless. And rumour has it that it was two very recent grads of the school's program. So really low time pilots. And the weather was shitty that day.

RIP kids. :(