{"id":274016,"date":"2026-08-28T15:28:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T15:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/274016\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T15:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T15:28:08","slug":"recent-fatal-chopper-crash-since-89-for-pennsylvania-state-police-aviation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/274016\/","title":{"rendered":"Recent Fatal Chopper Crash Since ’89 for Pennsylvania State Police Aviation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week\u2019s fatal crash at\u00a0Carlisle Airport<\/a>\u00a0involved a state aviation unit with a long history of using air power to help protect the public.<\/p>\n

In an average year,\u00a0Pennsylvania State Police\u00a0told PennLive this week, its aviation section \u2014 consisting of three planes and six helicopters \u2014 averages about 1,600 missions per year for PSP and other public safety agencies.<\/p>\n

Common calls include searches for missing, endangered or wanted people; criminal surveillance; and providing an air platform for incident command and control.<\/p>\n

Executive transport also is a key role.<\/p>\n

Flight logs show state police planes have flown Gov.\u00a0Josh Shapiro\u00a0about 30 times so far this year. The helicopters are not typically used for executive transport.<\/p>\n

New for the 21st century, the department has adopted a policy governing aircrafts\u2019 role in detecting, assessing and responding to drone activity in the commonwealth that presents a credible threat to public safety.<\/p>\n

The helicopters also assist in non-emergency situations, like major civic and sporting events.<\/p>\n

One thing that is not common? Crashes.<\/p>\n

While a full record of aviation accidents was not provided for this report, state police said the\u00a0Aug. 19\u00a0collision at\u00a0Carlisle\u00a0was the section\u2019s first\u00a0fatal crash<\/a>\u00a0since 1989.<\/p>\n

In the 1989 incident, a state police helicopter helping to search the\u00a0Susquehanna River\u00a0for a missing person flew into a power line and crashed into the river just north of the\u00a0Maryland\u00a0border.<\/p>\n

Cpl.\u00a0Paul Almer, the pilot, and Trooper\u00a0Wayne Bilheimer, his observation passenger, were found in the submerged wreckage, strapped in their seats.<\/p>\n

At\u00a0Carlisle Airport\u00a0in South Middleton Township last week, private pilot\u00a0Paul Sokoloski\u00a0was killed when his two-seat plane crashed<\/a>\u00a0into PSP\u2019s Bell 407 helicopter at\u00a06:52 p.m.<\/p>\n

Sokoloski, an emergency medicine doctor at\u00a0Penn State Hershey Medical Center, was making an approach to land at the airport.<\/p>\n

The state police helicopter was on a training mission there.<\/p>\n

Its two occupants, an instructor and a pilot receiving training, were both airlifted to\u00a0Penn State Hershey Medical Center\u00a0for treatment of injuries, but have since been released and are expected to make full recoveries.<\/p>\n

A video clip circulating on social media that\u00a0National Transportation Safety Board\u00a0officials have authenticated\u00a0shows<\/a>\u00a0the helicopter hovering at the side of the runway\u2019s envelope, a few feet off the ground.<\/p>\n

Sokoloski\u2019s descending plane is then seen coming into view, also now just feet off the ground.<\/p>\n

Seemingly aligned with the runway, the plane suddenly pitches up and veers sharply to the right, crashing at a high speed into the back end of the helicopter.<\/p>\n

The cause of the crash\u00a0remains under investigation<\/a>\u00a0by the\u00a0NTSB.<\/p>\n

Carlisle Airport, a small municipal airport,\u00a0is in and owned by South Middleton Township<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With one runway, it is home base to about 60 aircraft, including a Life Lion flight ambulance, and experiences about 500 operations \u2014 takeoffs and landings \u2014 in the average week.<\/p>\n

State police have regularly used it for training flights because of its proximity to the aviation section\u2019s regional base at\u00a0Capital City Airport\u00a0in\u00a0Fairview Township,\u00a0York County, and the less-congested airspace.<\/p>\n

Capitol City is close to\u00a0Harrisburg International Airport, central Pennsylvania\u2019s main commercial airport.<\/p>\n

The helicopter involved in the\u00a0Aug. 19\u00a0crash was destroyed.<\/p>\n

State police told PennLive losing one of its six choppers will affect day-to-day operations, but since there is still one helicopter for each of the state\u2019s five aviation patrol zones they see no problem meeting its mission.<\/p>\n

The wrecked helicopter had a value of $1.9 million, the agency estimated.<\/p>\n

While the state is self-insured for such losses, state police said it will \u201cseek recovery\u201d in this case, meaning it will likely pursue reimbursement from other insurance carriers with exposure from the crash.<\/p>\n

\u00a92026 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit\u00a0pennlive.com<\/a>. Distributed by\u00a0Tribune Content Agency, LLC<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week\u2019s fatal crash at\u00a0Carlisle Airport\u00a0involved a state aviation unit with a long history of using air power…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-274016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}