Helicopter crash near Waterloo, London

[Nawdic]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-21040410

Unfortunately happened roughly an hour ago (0800 GMT) after hitting a crane in Vauxhall, SE London.

The Agusta 109 (thought to be privately owned) was on a scheduled run between Redhill, Surrey to Elstree, Herts, and had to divert to Battersea due to fog.

The pilot (only person on board the helicopter) along with a member of public have died and another 5 have had to go to hospital.

The crane operator wasn't in the crane when it collapsed.

[Redirect Left]

Just heard this on the radio. Do they know what sort of helicopter it was yet? It seems odd it was flying that low, unless it was in distress to begin with?

[Kevo00]

Two dead (so far), lucky it wasn't a lot more given what a busy area the crash happened in, lucky to have avoided the bus and train stations and Sainsburys.

5Live said the London Ambulance Authority said the helicopter did not belong to them.

This is not too far from the London Heliport. I'd speculate this helicopter was probably heading for or from there, but no doubt it will all come out in the air accident investigation.

Edit: Its now reported the London Heliport lost contact with a helicopter...

[Nawdic]

1st post updated.

[Dave]

Could see the tower vaguely from work - but only after 11am when the cloud cleared. Not surprised this happened in the weather we had this morning.

Very, very lucky no more than two died. If it had gone onto the railway at that time there's no way a train would stop in time. There would be 30-40 dead in those crushes. minimum.

I wonder if EXTspotter was affected?

[EXTspotter]

No, I was through there before it happened - I get to waterloo just after 7.30 so I only heard about it after I got to work in Colindale...

It only just missed the tracks into Waterloo from the Wandsworth direction though. Could have been very bad as there was a train on the bridge at the time of the accident.

[Pilot]

Surely there should be a minimum altitude for any aircraft that is over London to be flying above, especially in weather conditions like this and where they've also lost radio contact. It would definitely stop accidents like this occurring again.

[Ameecher]

You can't say that you can definitely stop something like this happening when you don't even know what happened here.

Also, when things are flying you can't cancel out gravity wanting to win.

[Kevo00]

Rules are to be 'reviewed', apparently. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a8bd4d46-6008 ... z2IBZoZ5xU (sorry to post FT).

My sense would be that its not worth getting too excited when this is apparently the first fatal helicopter accident in London since CAA records began in 1976, and there are c. 2,000 flights over London a month, c. 600-700 using the heliport.

Edited to fix blooper.

[Chris]

I'm fairly sure that the CAA know what they're doing.

[Ameecher]

Rules are to be 'reviewed', apparently. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a8bd4d46-6008 ... z2IBZoZ5xU (sorry to post FT).

My sense would be that its not worth getting too excited when this is apparently the first fatal helicopter accident in London since CAA records began in 1976, and the London Heliport handles 2,000 flights a day.

Interesting point but I have to be sceptical about 2000 flights a day, that's 83 an hour and seeing as it is only open 0700-2300 that's 125 an hour or about one every 30 seconds. I'm not buying that.

[Kevo00]

Rules are to be 'reviewed', apparently. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a8bd4d46-6008 ... z2IBZoZ5xU (sorry to post FT).

My sense would be that its not worth getting too excited when this is apparently the first fatal helicopter accident in London since CAA records began in 1976, and the London Heliport handles 2,000 flights a day.

Interesting point but I have to be sceptical about 2000 flights a day, that's 83 an hour and seeing as it is only open 0700-2300 that's 125 an hour or about one every 30 seconds. I'm not buying that.

Correction, I meant 2,000 movements over London a month, and around 600 or so landing at the heliport. 2000 a day would be somewhat excessive!

Still, the numbers are quite high.

[PikkaBird]

Surely there should be a minimum altitude for any aircraft that is over London to be flying above

It's rather difficult to land an aircraft without passing through all altitudes down to and including 0.

[Dave]

A number of issues do arise from the base facts though - before we get into the rest:

- The helicopter clearly shouldn't have taken that path, so why was it there?
- Were the crane lights functioning correctly?
- Should he have been flying at all in that fog?

The other issue (that can't be resolved regardless) is someone pointed out this is the first properly tall building that is built pretty much ON the Thames; I assume one of the biggest chopper flight paths is the river itself, so that's a problem itself.

I don't agree with Kate Hoey's view on helicopter flights in London but I guess at least a review of paths would be good for everyone.

[EXTspotter]

The helicopter should not have been flying at that height. All helicopter fligths operated by multi-engined craft in London can travel relatively freely, as long as they are aware of any obstacles in the environment. In this way the flights are flown under visual flight rules, as in if you cannot see, you cannot fly. The crane was enshrouded in mist - hence was above the cloud level. For VFR, aircraft are only allowed to fly below the cloud level so that they have the ability to see where they are going. Something wierd is definitely going on. Also eyewitnesses reported seeing it veer from one side to the other, however if it was within the cloud layer, how could people on the ground have seen unless the helicopter had already crashed and was falling...?

[Dave]

Short-distance visibility wasn't so bad in London on Tuesday though. There's a rumour that he was already out of control.

[Kevo00]

Some interesting developments have emerged, including claims that even the pilot's waiting passenger was concerned about the visibility issue. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-21163428