Originally Posted by
dragon6172
The sports fields at the high school would be available, but all of those other open fields in that satellite view are currently construction sites for new residential buildings according to the most recent Google Street View shots from Feb 2023.
I honestly think that even if they had a fire indication and the intention to land as soon as they could, there's a good chance they would have still picked the airport from that position. Yes the fields are closer and allow a faster landing in theory, but setting up a proper approach (on one engine no less) to those fields would still require some maneuvers. Then there's the risk of hitting unseen obstacles like wires without a proper reconnaissance of the site. And the availability of emergency services at the airport.
If you know your tail boom is about to melt off you'd just slam the collective down and land no matter where or on what, but they obviously didn't know that.
In an alternate reality, the article could also read "EC135 pilot panics after false fire warning light, and hits wires while attempting an emergency landing on a baseball diamond a mile away from a wide open airport. 3 little league players in critical condition "
Armed with hindsight and an external view of the machine, we all know what the right call would've been - get down anywhere and disregard potential damage during landing. That call is not so easy to make when you don't have all the information though. How many false fire lights has everyone here had?