Helicopter crashes into Snake River, men inside survive, leave without talking to police

LEWISTON, ID (KLEW) — On Sunday, crews pulled a helicopter from the bottom of the Snake River after it crashed with two people inside the night before.

The Nez Perce County Sheriff's Office says they were called to the scene at 10:45 p.m. after the helicopter went down in the river near Ten Mile Canyon.

"The reports that we're getting were, in an attempt to help some hunters on the Idaho side of the river, they deployed from their helipad," says Cpl. Patrick Dupea with the sheriff’s office.

Dupea says the helicopter launched from the Washington side but only got about 200 yards before plummeting into the Snake River. The two men inside, Lewis Weiss of Duval and Alexander Jobe of Sammamish, where able to escape the sinking helicopter and make it to shore. But then they drove off without talking to law enforcement and authorities say they're still trying to contact them at this time.

"We're here to ensure everybody's safety and we need the pieces of the puzzles to put together what happened and make sure that everybody is safe,” says Dupea.

The sheriff's office got reports the helicopter had a mechanical failure but are still working to determine the exact cause of the crash. The helicopter sank to the bottom of the snake and was there until late afternoon.

"We marked it for precaution, just to make sure that nobody did hit it,” Dupea says.

Dupea adds that the hunters were never in danger and that citizens should contact local authorities if they think there's an emergency before going to help.

"We would sure like to be aware if they were going to launch some type of rescue mission to help these hunters out because the sheriff's office does have resources to deploy search and rescue."

The sheriff's office did say they've talked with the occupants’ family members as well as the owner of the helicopter. There have been no charges filed and no injuries reported in the incident at this time.

The investigation into the crash is ongoing.