Deposition to claim chopper engine was in earlier crash

Kim Smith

Thursday, May 30, 2002 | 11:06 a.m.

A helicopter engine company official is expected to give a videotaped deposition next week in which he will say the engine of a helicopter involved in a deadly crash last year was salvaged after an earlier crash.

Clark County District Court records show Stephen Ives, director of technical support for Turbomeca Engine Corp., will give a videotaped deposition June 6 in Dallas.

Turbomeca is one of the parties being sued by Chana Daskal, the sole survivor of an Aug. 10, 2001, helicopter crash that killed her husband and five others.

According to a sworn affidavit signed by Ives in February, the engine in the helicopter that crashed was originally built by Turbomeca in April 1991, then sold to a Japanese company.

Ives said the engine was used "until it had a 'hard landing' in September 2000, which damaged the aircraft and caused it to be taken out of service and sold as salvage."

The scrapped engine was bought by a New Zealand company that rebuilt and certified the engine, then sold to a Papillon company, Ives' affidavit states.

Ives said the engine entered Papillon's fleet on Aug. 3, 2001, and the accident took place seven days later.

Papillon Grand Canyon Helicopter Tours of Las Vegas is another one of the plaintiffs named in Daskal's suit.

The National Transportation Safety Board is still investigating the cause of the crash.

The NTSB's preliminary crash report said Daskal, 26, told rescuers that the helicopter's engine quit before the chopper hit the ground and burned.

"It got quiet and fell from the sky," Daskal told paramedics.

The American Eurocopters AS350-B2 helicopter crashed about 500 yards below the crest of the scenic Grand Wash Cliffs near Meadview, Ariz., 60 miles east of Las Vegas.

Daskal, a Brooklyn, N.Y., resident, was burned over 80 percent of her body and spent five months at University Medical Center before being transferred to a Staten Island hospital in January.

Besides Daskal's husband, David, the dead included pilot Kevin Innocenti, 27, of Henderson and four tourists -- Shayie Lichtenstein, Avi and Barbara Wajsbaum and Aryeh Zvi Fastag -- all from Brooklyn's tight-knit Orthodox Jewish community.

In addition to suing Papillon and Turbomeca, Daskal is suing the pilot's estate.