A police helicopter on approach for a landing was forced to ditch in the waters of Jamaica Bay in Brooklyn on Wednesday afternoon, the police said. None of the six people aboard were seriously injured.
Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, said that an initial inquiry suggested that a mechanical problem caused the helicopter to make an emergency landing in the waters near its base at Floyd Bennett Field at 3:47 p.m.
When the helicopter hit the water, the hard landing caused one of four rotors, or blades, to snap in half. The broken piece of blade slammed into the helicopter’s windshield, Mr. Browne said.
Mr. Browne said that all six crew members — a pilot, co-pilot, crew chief, crew chief in training and two police divers from its scuba team — were taken to Lutheran Medical Center, for evaluation, and that Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly met them there. One of the crew members suffered minor injuries.
Mr. Browne said he did not know where the helicopter, an air-sea helicopter purchased by the department about a year ago, had been before the incident. The helicopter was returning to base, but Mr. Browne said he did not “know what their prior assignment was.”
The chopper landed about 30 yards from the shore where Floyd Bennett Field is located. It was equipped with flotation devices “that act like pontoons,” Mr. Browne said. He said those devices were activated. A departmental boat approached to retrieve the crew members, and “nobody went in the water,” Mr. Browne said. “They were able to step from the helicopter onto the harbor vessel.”
Mr. Browne said that skids on the helicopter had flotation devices wrapped around them. “They were deployed before it hit the water,” he said.
By late afternoon, the helicopter, an Air-Sea Rescue Bell helicopter, Model 412, was towed toward the shore, where a large Emergency Service Unit truck pulled it to land via a cable, Mr. Browne said.