One person is dead and another has been left critically injured after two helicopters crashed in a southern New Jersey town.
Police in Hammonton, New Jersey, responded to a report of an aviation crash at about 11.25am on Sunday, according to Denise Mazzeo, the town’s deputy municipal clerk.
Police and fire crews extinguished flames that engulfed one helicopter, Mazzeo said in a statement to the Associated Press.
The Federal Aviation Administration described the crash as a midair collision between an Enstrom F-28A helicopter and Enstrom 280C helicopter over Hammonton municipal airport. Only the pilots were on board each aircraft.
One person was killed and another was transported to a nearby hospital with life-threatening injuries. Video from the scene showed a helicopter spinning rapidly to the ground.
The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating.
Hammonton is a town of about 15,000 people located in Atlantic county in the southern part of New Jersey, about 35 miles (56km) south-east of Philadelphia. The town has a history of agriculture and is located near the Pine Barrens, a forested wilderness area that covers more than 1m acres (405,000 hectares).