Police helicopter crashes onto Glasgow pub

[CJ Romeo]

Direction of travel

Chris,

Yes basically the aircraft was heading west following the clyde, clyde heliport is on the banks west of the crash site. It would need to clear the Kingston bridge (m8 motorway) further west, it has 18metres clearance for shipping and on top, 12 metre lighting columns, to give an idea of how high the machine should have been (I assume you fliers have minimum vertical clearances)The Kingston bridge is about 1 mile west of the crash site, with roughly another mile further to the heliport

When it crashed it was facing directly North, so it somehow turned right during the incident.

And as the following keeps coming up, may I impart local knowledge:

1) you can't ditch in the clyde at this point, there are 4 bridges in close proximity, Presenting very small landing areas between, especially for the descriptions of the auto rotation glides (I'm not an aviator)

2) there is no way this was selected as a landing site, the whole area is very well lit, and this roof is below the lanterns, so its illuminated, also there is a huge wall north and east, again, floodlit, you wouldn't choose to glide in here.

3) they had just flown over glasgow green, a huge flat park with big open spaces, about 200 yards east of the crash site, 100 yards north was an empty, illuminated huge car park, I'm pretty sure this roof was not an intended landing site. So as I see it, the accident happened within about 200 yards of forward travel, if some thing serious had occurred 200 yards prior, it would have landed on the green

Any geography or local construction questions I am happy to answer.