Authorities have identified the pilot of a small plane who died Wednesday after crashing into a Pennsylvania State Police helicopter.
Paul Sokoloski, 57, of Hershey, died in the collision, said the Cumberland County Coroner’s Office Thursday morning.
Sokoloski was an emergency room doctor at Penn State Health, according to a health system website. Penn State Health wasn’t immediately available for comment.
Sokoloski worked as an emergency physician since 1999, according to his LinkedIn profile. Since 2022, he worked at three Penn State Health hospitals around Harrisburg and Lancaster. From 2017 through 2021, he was an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Penn State College of Medicine.
The crash happened at Carlisle Airport, a small public-use airport about a half-hour southwest of Harrisburg.
Pennsylvania State Police were conducting a training exercise in a helicopter when it was struck by the Cessna 150 airplane piloted by Sokoloski, state police said Thursday.
“The Cessna 150 was attempting to land when, for an unknown reason, it veered off the north side of the runway and collided with the rear of the PSP helicopter, which was hovering in mid-air,” state police said in a news release.
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Sokoloski was the only person in the plane, state police said.
Two state police troopers in the helicopter, Cpl. Bryce Corman and Trooper Jason Mills, were airlifted to Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, police said.
Corman has since been released, and Mills remains hospitalized in stable condition, police said.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro Wednesday night called the injured state police troopers “heroes” and said he expressed his sympathy to their families.
“They are people who are absolutely essential to the operations of the Pennsylvania state police, and we are so grateful they are going to be OK,” Shapiro said.
State police, the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the incident, police said.