Three people died on Thursday afternoon when two helicopters collided in midair near a small airport in Oregon, officials said, in a crash that federal investigators are still trying to explain.

The collision involved a Robinson R22 and an Airbus H125 and happened at about 2:15 p.m. local time near McMinnville Municipal Airport, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Both aircraft came down in a field next to a highway, the Yamhill County Sheriff's Office said, and surrounding roads were closed while emergency crews responded. The sheriff's office said multiple agencies responded to the site, and it asked the public to avoid the area while crews worked.

Who was on board

The two people aboard the Robinson R22 were a 22-year-old flight instructor from Texas and a student pilot from the United Kingdom. The instructor was identified as Maddie Aasbo. The student pilot had not been publicly named as of Thursday night, because authorities were working with the consulate and the FBI to notify next of kin.

The sole occupant of the Airbus H125 was identified as Tyler Delane Sturdevant, 38, of Newberg, Oregon. All three died in the crash.

One of the aircraft belonged to Jerry Trimble Helicopters, a flight training school based at the McMinnville airport. The company said it was "deeply saddened to confirm that one of our aircraft was involved in an aviation incident this afternoon" and that it was fully cooperating with investigators. In a second statement it said its "hearts and thoughts are with the individuals involved, their families and everyone affected by the event".

What is known about the crash

The known facts are the time, the location, the aircraft types and the toll. The FAA said the Robinson R22 had only its pilot aboard, while the Airbus H125 was carrying two people. The sheriff's office said multiple agencies responded to the field southeast of McMinnville, which sits about 35 miles southwest of Portland.

The cause is not established. Neither the FAA nor the sheriff's office described the flight paths of the two helicopters, and neither said whether they were in contact with air traffic control. McMinnville Municipal Airport is a small general-aviation field without the kind of control tower environment found at a major hub, which matters for how aircraft separate from each other. Fields of that size handle flight training, private aircraft and emergency services rather than scheduled airline traffic.

Who is investigating

The National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation, with the FAA also involved. That is the standard division of labour: the FAA reports the basic facts and the NTSB conducts the safety inquiry, which can take months and ends with a factual report and a probable-cause finding.

The NTSB has not yet said whether it will issue an initial report, hold a press briefing or recover the wreckage for examination. The agency typically publishes a preliminary report within weeks and a final report much later. Preliminary reports usually state facts without assigning cause, and the probable-cause finding can take a year or more.

The training-school context

One of the aircraft was part of a flight-training operation, which adds a specific set of questions. Training flights are usually conducted in defined practice areas, often with an instructor and a student aboard, and their separation from other traffic depends on see-and-avoid practice, radio calls and local procedures rather than radar control.

None of that is evidence about this crash. It is the context investigators will look at. The NTSB will want to know what each crew was doing, whether they were in radio contact, what the visibility was and whether any warning system in either helicopter was working.

What to watch

The NTSB has not said whether it will hold a media briefing. Its investigators typically arrive within a day and begin documenting the wreckage and interviewing witnesses. Flight-training operations at small fields mix student flights, dual instruction and visiting aircraft, which is the traffic picture investigators will reconstruct. The first public milestone will be the NTSB's preliminary report, which usually confirms the basic facts and says little about cause. The second will be any safety recommendation, which can come before the final report if investigators find something urgent. The FAA, separately, can issue an airworthiness directive or a local procedure change if a systemic problem emerges.

For readers who want context on how accidents are handled, our coverage of the Spain high-speed train crash shows how a transport disaster becomes an investigation and then a political argument, and the Hawaii flood watch piece covers how emergency agencies communicate risk while an event is still developing. The Odyssey of the Seas passenger rescue story is a reminder that the response side of an incident has its own record to check.

For the families and the flight school, the next weeks are about notification, recovery and the slow work of the NTSB. For the public record, the honest state of the story is that three people died, two aircraft collided, and nobody has yet said why.