Lawsuit Filed Over Helicopter Crash

The widow of a photographer killed in a helicopter crash while filming “The Final Season” is suing actor Sean Astin, the movie’s producers and the pilot, among others. Kathryn Schlotzhauer alleges that the crash on June 30th in Benton County could have been avoided if the crew scouted the scene and noted the power lines that brought the helicopter down. Her husband, 50-year-old Roland Schlotzhauer of Lenexa, Kansas, was killed in the crash. He was filming a parade scene in the final days of the shoot when the helicopter crashed into a cornfield near Walford.

The crash also seriously injured 72 year old pilot Richard Green of Hudson and producer Tony Wilson of Dallas Center. Both survivors are named among 19 defendants in a wrongful death lawsuit filed in Polk County.

The suit also names Wilson’s special-effects firm Applied Art and Technology of Des Moines, and the East-Central Iowa Rural Electric Cooperative, which owns the power lines.