MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – The co-pilot of a helicopter that crashed outside Mexico City, killing Interior Minister Francisco Blake and seven others, had told his brother the aircraft was faulty, a newspaper reported on Sunday.
“My brother told me on Wednesday. That helicopter is not OK and it was failing on the way back from Colima,” Hiram Fernando Escobar told El Universal newspaper of his conversation with brother Pedro Ramon Escobar, who died in the crash on Friday.
But officials charged with investigating the accident repeated in a news conference on Sunday that the craft was fit to fly, sticking with their previous explanation that bad weather was a key factor in the crash.
Mexico’s Communications and Transportation Minister Dionisio Perez-Jacome said that the helicopter, made in 1984, had been serviced between November 4-6, and had flown on November 9 and 10 without reports of problems.
Samples taken from the helicopter’s wreckage and other evidence are consistent with the hypothesis that it crashed into a hillside after running into thick fog or cloud, Perez-Jacome said.
Investigators were not asked directly about the comments by the co-pilot’s brother, but they said they did not believe there was engine failure.
The helicopter was in radar contact up to
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