Helicopter carrying 6 people crashes in California desert near Las Vegas

A helicopter carrying six people crashed in a Southern California desert late Friday, the latest in a number of high-profile aviation disasters in the U.S.

The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed Saturday it and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating a Eurocopter EC 130 helicopter that crashed around 10 p.m. Friday near Nipton, California.

San Bernardino Sheriff's Department officials told KABC-TV that they have not been able to locate any survivors and the cause of the crash is unknown.

The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department didn't immediately respond to USA TODAY's request for comment.

Nipton is located near the California-Nevada border, near Las Vegas.

The crash follows two deadly aviation disasters in recent days.

At least two people were killed Friday afternoon when a small plane that had lost both its engines crashed into a vehicle on a Florida interstate as the pilot attempted to make an emergency landing, authorities said. And earlier this week, five U.S. Marines died after a military helicopter went down in the mountains near San Diego.

Many aviation disasters have happened in California

Southern California is busy hub for military and small aircraft and has a long history of aviation tragedies and near-disasters.

In June 2022, three military aircraft crashes occurred in Southern California in the span of a week. U.S. Navy pilot Lt. Richard Bullock was killed on June 3 when his F/A-18E Super Hornet crashed near Trona. Days later, five Marines on an MV-22B Osprey died when the aircraft crashed in a California desert near the Arizona border during training. A Navy helicopter crashed in the same region and all four crew members survived.

In July, six people died after a Cessna C550 crashed near the French Valley Airport in Murrieta, California. It happened just days after a 39-year-old man was killed and three children were injured near the same airport.

This past January, a Navy helicopter crashed off the coast of Coronado, California with all six aboard surviving.

Jack Cress, an instructor in the Aviation Safety & Security Program at the University of Southern California and a former helicopter pilot in the U.S. Marine Corps. said that while the Southern California's mountainous terrain and weather events like the atmospheric river can pose a challenge for pilots, the high traffic likely contributes to the number of accidents.

"Accident rates may be a little bit higher in California than others, but I would assume if it's the case, it would most likely be because of volume more than anything else," said Cress.

Contact reporter Krystal Nurse at [email protected]. Follow her on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, @KrystalRNurse.

Contributing: The Associated Press; Christopher Cann, Natalie Neysa Alund, Claire Thornton and Minnah Arshad USA TODAY; Luis Zambrano and Kate Cimini, USA TODAY NETWORK