Family Names Victims of Helicopter Slackline Crash

A helicopter collided with a slackline over a canyon in Arizona and crashed, leaving four passengers dead over the holiday weekend. Now, a family member has released their identities.

On January 2, a woman named Elizabeth Gallup named the four victims in an online post as pilot David McCarty, 59, as well as family members Rachel McCarty, Faith McCarty, and Katelyn Heideman. In an email to Outside, the Pinal County Medical Examiner confirmed the identities of the victims. The responding agency, the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO), listed the three women’s ages as 22, 21, and 21 in a Facebook post.

The East Oregonian reported that David McCarty owned and operated a helicopter business in Baker County, Oregon. His company, Columbia Basin Helicopters, performed multiple helicopter-related jobs, including logging, agricultural spraying, and firefighting.

The crash occurred shortly before 11:00 A.M. on January 2. No one was walking on the line at the time of the incident.

The half-mile-long slackline was strung across Telegraph Canyon, a recreational area located near Superior, Arizona, about 60 miles east of Phoenix in the Sonoran Desert. An eyewitness saw the helicopter strike a portion of the line before it fell to the bottom of the canyon, according to the PCSO.

When first responders reached the remote crash site, they found no survivors.

“They went out for a helicopter ride in Arizona. The helicopter crashed and they never got the chance to come home,” wrote Gallup on Facebook. “My family and I want to thank you all for the positive thoughts, prayers, calls, and text messages. Please continue to pray over every single family member as we process this heartbreak. All the love and support is welcome. We truly have no words right now.”

A slackline is a thin, flat piece of webbing, sometimes hundreds or even thousands of feet long, strung between two anchor points, like trees or buildings. Some slacklines are just a few feet off the ground. Others, known as highlines, can be suspended hundreds of feet high. Slackliners walk across these lines, sometimes balancing, other times performing flips and stunts.

The International Slacklining Association said in a statement that the individuals who set up the slackline followed proper protocols, marking it with hanging fluorescent flags and informing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in advance so the agency could issue a warning to pilots in the area.

The FAA subsequently issued a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM), an advisory that warns pilots of obstructions or other irregularities in a given flight area. This NOTAM was active from December 21, 2025, to January 6, 2026, and described a 2,800-foot-long slackline located 600 feet above ground. The warning urged pilots to maintain a distance of roughly one mile from the slackline.

It’s unclear whether McCarty was aware of the NOTAM before taking flight.

Keith Holloway, a spokesman for the NTSB, told the Oregon outlet Baker City Herald that a preliminary report is expected within a month of the accident, but the final report may take up to two years.