OAN Staff Cory Hawkins and Brooke Mallory
12:30 PM – Monday, December 29, 2025
Following Sunday’s mid-air collision between two helicopters in South Jersey — initially resulting in one fatality and the critical injury of another — the second pilot has now tragically succumbed to his injuries.
Local authorities have since identified both men.
According to officials, 65-year-old Kenneth Kirsch of Carney’s Point, New Jersey, the pilot of the Enstrom F-28A helicopter, was transported to a hospital after the crash but later passed away on Monday from his injuries. The pilot of the Enstrom 280C helicopter, Michael Greenberg, 71, of Sewell, New Jersey, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Kirsch and Greenberg, both experienced recreational pilots who often flew together, were good friends, often sharing a meal together at a cafe near the crash site in Hammonton. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are treating it as an accidental mid-air collision.
The crash occurred at around 11:25 a.m. on Sunday, sending both helicopters down less than three miles from Hammonton Municipal Airport. According to Atlantic County Fire and EMS radio traffic, they came down in a field along the 100 block of Basin Road.
One helicopter even burst into flames upon impact.
“It was probably just a moment or two after their flight started that they collided,” Hammonton Police Chief Kevin Friel said.
Fire crews arrived quickly after the collision and extinguished the flames on the helicopter that caught fire, helping secure the scene and prevent further spread. Additionally, local residents also rushed to assist, pulling the pilot from the second helicopter that came down in a tree line before emergency responders reached him.
Sal Silipino, the owner of the cafe where the two pilots would often dine at, says he watched the helicopters take off before one suddenly began spiraling downward, followed by the other.
“I was talking to the customers and we looked up and I saw one spiraling,” said Silipino. “I didn’t see them collide or anything. I see the one go down and then the other one go down. And at first I was a little bit in shock. Did they just crash? Was that real what I saw? And then it was all over. We saw all the smoke. It was terrifying.”
Hammonton resident Dan Dameshek told the press that as he was leaving a gym, he heard a thunderous snap and saw the two helicopters spiraling out of control overhead.
“Immediately, the first helicopter went from right side up to upside down and started rapidly spinning, falling out of the air,” Dameshek said in an interview “And then it looked like the second helicopter was OK for a second, and then it sounded like another snap or something … and then that helicopter started rapidly spinning out of the air.”
Living close to the crash site, another resident, Caitlyn Collins, was one of the first on the scene. She said she rushed to help and held the hand of one of the pilots, later identified as 65-year-old Kirsch.
“I just held his hand and said, ‘Everything is going to be OK. Everyone is coming for you. We all know you’re here. You’re safe here. The sirens are for you. They’re on their way. You just got to stay,'” Collins said.
The FAA later confirmed that the pilots were the only individuals on board during the incident.
“Only the pilots were on board each aircraft. The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board will investigate. The NTSB will be in charge of the investigation and will provide further updates,” the FAA added.
Investigators will typically look to review any communication between the two pilots and whether they were able to locate each other in the air, according to Alan Diehl, a former crash investigator for the FAA.
“Virtually all midair collisions are a failure to what they call ‘see and avoid,’” Diehl said. “Clearly they’ll be looking at the out-of-cockpit views of the two aircraft and seeing if one pilot was approaching from the blind side.”
At the time of the mid‑air collision it was mostly cloudy, but winds were light and visibility was good, with no severe weather conditions reported that would have obviously impeded pilots’ sight or control, according to weather forecasting company AccuWeather.
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