By Elyse Carmosino
The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate
BATON ROUGE, La. — In the moments before last month’s deadly crash, a Baton Rouge police helicopter erratically changed speed, altitude and direction before plummeting into a nearby field, federal investigators said in a report released Wednesday.
The findings confirm a story told by publicly available flight data, which suggests something went wrong before the aircraft crashed, killing both officers on board.
Veteran officers Sgt. David Poirrier and Cpl. Scotty Canezaro died March 26 when the helicopter they were piloting in pursuit of a hit-and-run suspect went down near Erwinville in West Baton Parish.
In its preliminary report, the National Transportation Service Board confirmed that the pair radioed dispatch and ground units that they were joining the chase and had been requesting updates on the suspect vehicle’s movement and location before going silent around the time the chase was called off.
At that time, data shows, the helicopter “executed a shallow left deviation” to the south of Highway 190 before turning left again, at which point the aircraft’s turn rate increased before undergoing a series of turns and altitude changes, the report says.
Despite the fact that BRPD called off the pursuit around 2:35 a.m. — and the FAA’s report showed the helicopter crashed shortly after — the West Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office was only alerted to the incident around 11 a.m. after the family of one of the pilots requested a search.
According to the NTSB report, the family reported that the officer had not returned home after they noticed his cellphone was sending signals from a remote area in West Baton Rouge.
BRPD spokesman Sgt. L’Jean McKneely has said the department is conducting its own investigation into what occurred, adding that the agency is working with the Baton Rouge airport and the Federal Aviation Administration to determine “why there was such a lapse in time” before BRPD was made aware of the crash. The department said it was grounding night flights while it investigated.
After the incident, the FAA initially determined that the helicopter’s tail rotor hit a tree, causing it to crash upside down. However, the agency revised its preliminary report days later to say the cause of the crash was unknown.
Available flight data using FlightAware, which maps an aircraft’s movements every 15 to 20 seconds, shows that the helicopter ascended sharply and seesawed in speed during its final moments.
The NTSB’s report confirms the helicopter’s chaotic ascent using data from a more precise on-board device called an Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast, or ADS-B. The ADS-B broadcasts information every second to ground stations and other aircraft about its aircraft’s GPS location, altitude and ground speed — the speed of an aircraft relative to the surface of the earth.
Several pilots told The Advocate it’s impossible to know what went wrong until the federal investigation is complete. But they said the sharp changes in speed and altitude could have resulted from a mechanical failure or clouds causing the pilot to become disoriented.
As part of their separate ongoing investigations, the FAA and the NTSB will study data from an onboard flight tracker that broadcasts and records information about an aircraft’s location, altitude and ground speed every second. Investigators will also study wreckage that was removed from the scene.
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