Las Vegas man recalls Grand Canyon helicopter crash scene
Lionel Douglass remembers standing on a bluff the evening of Feb. 10, admiring the Grand Canyon view like he had done so many times before. Then came the roar of the flames and the screams.
Douglass said he has officiated at helicopter wedding trips for years. But the Las Vegas man’s experience witnessing the Feb. 10 Papillon Grand Canyon Helicopters crash that killed three people and seriously injured four others caused him to change course.
“I decided that I’ll retire from helicopter weddings and I’ll do them on the ground,” said Douglass, 63, who took up wedding officiating after retiring from acting.
On that Saturday evening, Douglass said, he briefly looked away from where he was standing after the wedding, turned back toward the canyon, and watched the helicopter “pivot” twice before dropping from the sky toward the canyon floor. The helicopter spun twice before it crashed, according to a National Transportation Safety Board report released Thursday.
That was when he heard sounds coming from the flaming wreckage.
“Flames like I’ve never heard before,” Douglass said. “I mean, those flames, they were like scary movie flames.”
And then screams from a woman who stumbled away from the wreckage. She repeatedly called a man’s name, Douglass said, adding he also heard at least five explosions.
Douglass captured the intense flames and crash aftermath in cellphone videos.
“It was a horrible moment, and it just plays over and over,” he said.
Douglass experienced his own frightening encounter during the helicopter flight from Las Vegas to the wedding location that day. Within five minutes of the helicopter being airborne, he felt the aircraft suddenly drop 5 to 10 feet.
“Not a little turbulence drop, but a drop to where I thought, ‘Oh, this must be it,’” Douglass recalled.
As he sat on a Boulder City-bound bus after the crash, Douglass thought about seeing his wife again.
“And then I felt so hurt for all those people,” he said.
Contact Blake Apgar at bapgar@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5298. Follow @blakeapgar on Twitter.
