Eagle Times Staff
CROYDON, NH — A veteran pilot died in a helicopter crash Sunday, Oct. 8, in Croydon.
Carl Svenson, 73, of Loudon, NH, has been identified as the pilot and helicopter’s sole occupant.
JBI Helicopter Services of Pembroke, NH, reported one of their helicopters departed Croydon at approximately 7:30 p.m. However, soon after it left, the company said it could no longer track the helicopter.
Generally, a position is sent from the helicopter every couple of minutes. The helicopter was scheduled to fly to a job later that evening in Quonset, Rhode Island.
At 10:20 p.m., the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department was notified of a possible crash.
Croydon Volunteer Fire Chief Jason Rook stated in a press release that the helicopter took off from a private landing zone headed northeast for “about three-quarters of a mile when it went off the radar.”
NH Fish and Game Conservation Officers, the NH State Police Helicopter Unit and members of the Croydon Fire Department responded to Pine Hill Road in Croydon to search for the missing helicopter.
At approximately 1:50 a.m. this morning, a ground search crew located the helicopter in the woods off Pine Hill Road. The aircraft had sustained substantial damage, and the pilot, the sole occupant, was found deceased.
Conservation Officers and Croydon, Springfield and Grantham Fire Department members assisted in the short carry-out to an awaiting utility terrain vehicle to bring the deceased to the road for transport by Newton-Bartlett Funeral Home.
Svenson had been a pilot for approximately 50 years and started working for JBI Helicopter Services in the 1980s.
The cause of the crash is still under investigation.
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