69-year-old Carl Enlow had been a pilot for 50 years

Sep 30, 2013 13:44 GMT  ·  By

An experienced helicopter pilot from Pennsylvania has been killed after being hit by the chopper blade.

69-year-old Carl Enlow was participating in the Bloomsburg Fair on Friday, September 27, when he was hit by the blade.

Enlow had gotten out of the chopper and a team was refueling the aircraft. A second pilot stayed inside and the victim approached the chopper to talk to the pilot.

At that point, the strong winds blew his hat off his head and he reached for it. He was hit by the rotor and collapsed.

"He went back to talk to the other pilot, and that's when the rotor struck him," William Barratt describes for the Bloomsburg Fair Association.

"That just goes to prove that anything can happen," Barratt, the superintendent at the largest fair in the United States, recalls in an interview with Pennsylvania's PA Homepage.

Enlow was airlifted to Geisinger Medical Center in Danville with the help of Life Flight. He was pronounced dead upon arrival.

He was an experienced pilot with 50 years of training on both commercial and military flights.

"He's been doing this for many years. [...] I'm sure that a lot of people who return to the fair probably know him," Dawn Kingston of Bloomsburg describes.

He was offering rides at the fair and he had been doing so since 1993. Now, the Bloomsburg Fair Association is donating all proceeds from the flights to his family.

"He was a very sweet man with a heart of gold, and we really appreciated everything he did," Kingston says.

"The fair board is going to do whatever we can to help her with whatever she needs," Barratt adds.

They have also set up a memorial fund for residents to contribute for the funeral services.