California helicopter crash that killed 3 under investigation

(Reuters) -Federal authorities on Monday were investigating the cause of a mid-air collision between two helicopters in Southern California that killed two firefighters and a pilot as they responded to a small wildfire near Palm Springs.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said in a statement that it was investigating the collision between a Bell 407 helicopter and a Sikorsky S-64E helicopter in Cabazon, California, a community 80 miles (129 km) east of Los Angeles.

The blaze began on Sunday evening as a structure fire spread into nearby vegetation, CalFire Southern Region Chief David Fulcher told a news briefing.

The two helicopters collided after they were deployed to fight the brush fire from the air. The Sikorsky helicopter landed safely nearby, while the Bell craft crashed to the ground, Fulcher said.

A CalFire division chief, a fire captain and the contracted pilot aboard the Bell helicopter were killed in the incident, said Fulcher, who did not identify the deceased.

(Reporting by Anirudh Saligrama and Nilutpal Timsina in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Bharat Govind Gautam; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Toby Chopra and Barbara Lewis)