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Cranbrook RCMP identify three victims of fiery helicopter crash in B.C.

May 14, 2008, Cranbrook, BC –  CP [The Canadian Press] – A 57-year-old senior pilot with Big Horn Helicopters has been identified as one of three people killed in a fiery helicopter crash in Cranbrook, B.C.

Edward William Kyle Heeb has already been praised for avoiding further carnage by managing to bring the chopper down in a street of the residential neighbourhood avoiding nearby homes, apartments and schools.

Heeb and his two passengers who were both B.C. Hydro employees – 45-year-old Dirk Bentley Rozenboom and 37-year-old Robert William Lehmann – died when the helicopter exploded after hitting the pavement on Tuesday.

RCMP in the southeastern B.C. city have not yet identified the fourth person, a pedestrian, who died after being engulfed by the falling debris.

The Globe and Mail Newspaper reports a friend of the man has identified him as 23-year-old international student Isaiah Otieno of Kenya, who had been studying in Cranbrook for the last two years.

A team from the Transportation Safety Board is now examining the wreckage but officials says it could be weeks or months until a cause of the crash is determined.