I was at the air show and heard the crash (was walking away from the scene at the time). Turned around to see the helicopter lying on the ground and bits flying everywhere. It was a frightening noise and very sad to learn of a fatality.
Rossfeld is a very hilly grass field on top of a big hill. Most of the runway is steeply sloped onw way or the other. You certainly can't see one end of the runway from standing at the other.
It's a fantastic venue for an air show since the displays can take place at spectator eye level over the valley. I do hope this doesn't mean the end of the event.
The day was beautiful and sunny with hardly a breath or wind. Aircraft were landing in both directions at various times during the event.
Edit: I should add that this didn't appear to me to be a take off accident in a sense, because I believe this was one of the Rundfluege which were departing from and returning to the (other, not shown) far end of the field. What the helicopter was doing and why hover taxiing near where the accident took place is unclear. It would have had to taxi up and down the middle hill of the runway quite some distance to get there as far as I can figure. There might be an operational reason for this but it seemed weird and unnecessary to me
Last edited by Andy_RR; 12th Sep 2012 at 22:40.