A helicopter used to transport timber crashed in a remote Malaysian rain forest on Borneo island, killing the American pilot and injuring the co—pilot, officials said on Saturday.
The helicopter went down on Friday in a logging zone in Malaysia’s eastern Sarawak state, a district police official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to make public statements.
The American pilot was killed and his co—pilot was hospitalized, the official said. Authorities have not determined the cause of the accident.
A U.S. Embassy representative in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s main city, said she was aware of the accident but could not release the pilots’ identities because of the embassy’s privacy policy.
The helicopter was operated by the Malaysian subsidiary of Portland, Oregon—based Erickson Air—Crane Inc., which harvests timber for Malaysian loggers in Borneo. A company employee based in Sarawak also confirmed the crash and the pilot’s death, but she could not give details and declined to be identified.
