Petr Kellner: Billionaire and Czech Republic’s richest male killed in helicopter crash during Alaska ski vacation | Earth News
3 min readPetr Kellner, the Czech Republic’s richest person, has been killed in a helicopter crash in Alaska.
The billionaire’s demise, alongside with those people of 4 other people, was declared by his financial team PPF.
An investigation into the crash has been launched by the National Transportation Basic safety Board.
The crash took place around Knik glacier, about 50 miles east of Anchorage in Alaska
Mr Kellner and his group had been on a heli-snowboarding excursion – which includes off-trail, downhill skiing or snowboarding achieved by helicopter – as a substitute of a ski lift.
The 56-12 months-previous businessman, whose net worthy of has been believed at $17.5bn by Forbes, was aboard an Airbus AS350 B3 helicopter when it went down close to Knik Glacier.
Officers say it crashed below not known conditions about 50 miles east of Anchorage at 6.35pm on Saturday.
A sixth human being on board was in a serious but secure condition on Sunday at an Anchorage hospital, Alaska State Troopers claimed.
They mentioned in a assertion that they obtained a report of an overdue helicopter and the place of attainable crash particles on Saturday night time.
The others killed have been recognized as Gregory Harms, 52, of Colorado Benjamin Larochaix, 50, also of the Czech Republic and two Alaskans, Sean McMannany, 38, of Girdwood, and the pilot, Zachary Russel, 33, of Anchorage.
The five travellers integrated three visitors and two guides from Tordrillo Mountain Lodge, organization spokesperson Mary Ann Pruitt mentioned.
Mr Kellner made his to start with fortune in the 1990s through the start of an expense fund that he used to purchase a controlling stake in the country’s greatest insurance policies organization.
He bought a major European broadcast network, Central European Media Enterprises, for $1.1bn past October, prompting fears in the Czech Republic that the network could possibly eliminate independence.
Mr Harms was a groundbreaking heli-ski guideline in Alaska and labored for numerous a long time at the lodge, Ms Pruitt reported.
“Greg was one particular of the most knowledgeable guides in the business,” she explained in an e-mail to the Involved Press.
He also launched a heli-ski business that led excursions across the entire world.
Mr McMannany experienced been a guideline for about 10 several years, and was with the lodge for the previous 5, she claimed. He was also an avalanche teacher and an skilled mountain guidebook on Denali, North America’s tallest peak.
She included that Mr Kellner and Mr Larochaix “were faithful and frequent” guests at the lodge.
Mr Russel was a pilot for Soloy Helicopters, a Wasilla-based mostly organization that is contracted by the lodge to offer transportation, Ms Pruitt claimed.
“This information is devastating to our staff members, the group in which we work, and the family members of the deceased,” a statement launched by the lodge mentioned.
It additional that it was the initial time in its 17 a long time in organization “we have had to face an event of this measure”.
The company website bills by itself as the longest functioning heli-snowboarding lodge in Alaska, promising deep powder, pristine runs on some of the very best mountain terrain in the environment, with packages costing from $15,000 (£10,897) for each person.
“An unparalleled alpine journey is only a helicopter experience absent,” the site states.
