Army investigators are probing the cause of a National Guard helicopter crash that killed two Knoxville pilots in Campbell County over the weekend.
Tennessee Army National Guard 1st Lt. Thomas Joseph Williams Jr., 26, and Chief Warrant Officer 4 Daniel Cole, 41, were killed when their OH-58D Kiowa Warrior went down near Exit 141 on Interstate 75 about 5:30 p.m. Saturday, said Tennessee Military Department spokesman Randy Harris.
The two pilots - both members of the 1/230th Air Cavalry Squadron, Troop C, based at McGhee Tyson Air National Guard Base - were conducting a routine training flight at the time, he said.
The cause of the crash is unknown. An Army aviation safety team from Fort Rucker, Ala., is investigating, Harris said.
A LaFollette Utilities Board spokesperson said the aircraft struck power lines at some point in the course of the crash, causing brief outages in the surrounding area.
The OH-58D Kiowa Warrior is the armed attack version of the OH-58 Kiowa observation and reconnaissance helicopter.
Two other Warrior pilots from the 1/230th's Troop C - Capt. Marcus R. Alford Sr., 28, of Knoxville, and Chief Warrant Officer 2 Billie Jean Grinder, 25, of Gallatin - were killed in a crash while deployed with the squadron near Mosul, Iraq in February 2010.
Family members of Alford and Grinder filed a lawsuit earlier this year in Knox County Circuit Court alleging that the helicopter's electronic control system was a direct and proximate cause of their deaths because the helicopter's producers were negligent in failing to correct and remove unsafe, dangerous and defective conditions about which they should have known.
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