Chopper in Charlottesville crash was en route to support governor's motorcade, had prior mechanical problems

Blue Lives Matter flag in Chicago

Did you see some of these headlines about the Charlottesville tragedy?

• The Hill: Three dead after violent clashes in Charlottesville.
• PBS NewsHour: Three dead after white nationalist rally in Charlottesville.
• Chicago Tribune: 3 dead, dozens injured, amid violent white nationalist rally in Virginia.

As you know, a man who has shown sympathies to Nazism, James Alex Fields, Jr., has been arrested for killing a woman, Heather Heyer, when he allegedly rammed a group of protesters with his Dodge Challenger. Nineteen others were injured.

What about the other two deaths? A couple hours after the homicide in Charlottesville a helicopter crashed, killing two pilots with the Virginia State Police. Was their deaths, which occurred over three hours after Heyer's killing, directly tied to the rally?

From WDBJ-TV:

The National Transportation Safety Board said in a statement on Monday that the purpose of the flight of the chopper was to provide a continuous video feed of activities on the ground. This was accomplished with multiple helicopters on Saturday, the day of the rally in Charlottesville.

The helicopter in the accident was a Bell 407 that was manufactured in 2000.

Officials say it departed Charlottesville airport around 3:54 p.m. and was over the downtown area by 4:04 p.m. and was engaged in mission-related activities there until 4:42 p.m. They then departed the area to provide support for a motorcade carrying Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe.

Ah, at that point the cops were providing security coverage for McAuliffe.

Now, let's say there was a flood instead of a racist rally in Charlottesville. Would the media blame the pilots' tragic death on the flood? Maybe.

Let's say instead McAuliffe was in Charlottesville to dedicate a new bridge. Would the media blame the bridge?

On Tuesday it was reported that the chopper in the crash was severely damaged in 2010 during an emergency landing. The National Transportation Safety found that "the improper repair of an engine component by a repair facility" was the cause of that first incident.

Nazis and KKK members are scum. But hey there, mainstream media members--don't use them to distort the news.