The pilot of a small plane and Pennsylvania State Police troopers aboard a helicopter were in two-way radio contact before their collision at Carlisle Airport Wednesday night, the National Transportation Safety Board confirmed Friday. The content of those transmissions is unknown — the airport was not recording the Common Traffic Advisory Frequency.
NTSB investigator-in-charge Aaron McCarter said the helicopter was not on the runway at the moment of impact. The crash killed plane pilot Paul Sokoloski and injured two state troopers.
Video evidence recovered so far shows the plane in a markedly abnormal flight attitude before the collision. McCarter described the aircraft as flying “at a steep nose pushed up attitude, right-wing low” with wings rocking back and forth before briefly leveling, then departing the right side of Runway 28 and striking the helicopter. Investigators do not yet know when the plane began flying erratically.
NTSB will order weather and performance studies to determine whether rotor wash from the helicopter was a factor. McCarter said it is too early to draw any conclusions on that point.
Investigators plan to obtain helicopter maintenance records from the FAA and review flight records to establish what training was underway at the time. Carlisle Airport has indicated it will record CTAF transmissions more consistently going forward — a gap this investigation has already exposed.
CTAF is the uncontrolled-field standard for self-announced position calls. Its absence from the recorded record leaves investigators without direct insight into what coordination, if any, shaped the final sequence of events.
