Date was recorded as 04-Jun-17 when helicopter wreckage was found, but as reports state the pilot’s family were looking “in the middle of the night” for him, and he was last seen on 03-Jun-17, we believe the accident date would most likely have been 03-Jun-17. NTSB also tweeted on 4th June that they were attending “investigating yesterday’s crash of a Robinson R-44 helicopter in Dimmit, TX”. No details of the situation have been reported, bar that it was working low level checking on cattle.
The accident killed 68-year old Don Oppliger – whos company owns ranches and farms in Texas, New Mexico and Nebraska to support the feeding of 230,000 cattle in six large feedlots. More than 90,000 acres of the roughly 150,000 acres held by the company are in Nebraska, including properties near Paxton, Wallace, Atkinson, Tryon and Johnstown.
