U.S. Pilot killed in Lagos Helicopter Crash

The bodies of the two remaining persons missing from Wednesday’s Bristow helicopter crash in Lagos have been recovered by the search and rescue team. The bodies recovered at about 10.25 a.m. yesterday were that of a white American, Captain Jay Wyatt, who was the pilot and a black, who was the co-pilot. The two-man crew perished when the twin-engine Sikorsky 76C+ plunged into the water north of the city as it was heading back from an oil rig on Wednesday.

Marine police and fishermen delivered the bodies of Capt. Joseph "Jay" Wyatt of Oklahoma and First Officer Peter Bello of Nigeria, according to the helicopter's owner, Bristow Group of Houston, Texas. A statement from the company did not give Wyatt's home town.

According to a report by LASWA Managing Director, Mr Yinka Marinho,  submitted to the state government; ’At 9.30am yesterday, a joint effort by the Nigerian Navy and LASWA rescue teams retrieved the bodies of the Captain and co-pilot from the cockpit of the crashed helicopter. The bodies were handed over to the police station at Oworonshoki. The Lagos State Police Command’s spokesperson, DSP Patricia Amadin, had confirmed that after the crash, six persons were rescued alive on Wednesday and four dead.

The police also confirmed that the ill-fated helicopter which plunged into the Lagos Lagoon at Oworonshoki, was carrying 12 passengers when the accident occurred at about 3.10 p.m.