How to check for a helicopter incident?

[Skyray]

I was driving in Renton, WA a couple of hours ago and I saw a helicopter, north of me, dropping vertically very, very quickly. It was a few miles away, and it went behind a building before I could see if it recovered.

It was falling with such speed that I can't imagine it was a normal descent. My thought was that it, hopefully, was doing an autorotation, and would slow before it landed, because if it continued down at that rate I was witnessing, it certainly looked like a crash in progress.

Anyway, nothing showing on the local news sites or *******, so hopefully what I saw was unusual but not a newsworthy incident.

Is there any kind of site that has close to real-time reporting of accidents/incidents that might report if there was an autorotation or crash? What I saw was really disturbing, and I'd feel a lot better knowing it wasn't a crash or injury situation.

[widgeon]

faa posts daily accident reports.
Preliminary Accident & Incident Data (http://www.faa.gov/data_research/accident_incident/preliminary_data/)

IF it was reported it would be there.

Some time later there will be a report on the NTSB site.

I think any accident that involves substantial damage or injury has to be reported .

[Gordy]

Preliminary data can sometimes take days to show up...I would watch the evening news. As nothing is on any of the Seattle staions so far, I would guess it was just someone training.

[Whirlygig]

Renton you say :E There are a couple of helicopter operators there.

Most likely a training flight, practising autorotations. A helicopter dropping through the sky at 1,000 ft per minute can look alarming.

Cheers

Whirls

[Skyray]

Yep, guessing it was just training. Which is good to know! It was certainly descending at a speed I've never seen a helicopter come down at before. I was cursing myself for not just stopping the car to see it recover from the high-speed descent (I had a pretty clear view almost to the ground, but then buildings obscured it after I saw the first five seconds or so of the "fall").

Anyway, nothing in the news, so must have been training. Wow, autorotation training must be really exciting!

[oleary]

Autos are rarely much greater than 2500' fpm in any type even if you don't use best speed, but you can get a 205/212 (and many others) to as much as 5000' fpm if you do it right.

But why do this, you ask? A fire you can't put out, inside or outside. It looks pretty cool from the ground, too!

[Gomer Pylot]

If you were driving a car, that could explain a lot. The apparent movement from a moving car can be very different from the real movement, and the descent rate and angle can appear to be much greater than actual.

[rotorfan]

"Most likely a training flight, practising autorotations. A helicopter dropping through the sky at 1,000 ft per minute can look alarming.
Cheers
Whirls"

1000 FPM. Wow, I wish my autos were that serene!:\ (It looks like 4000 FPM from inside, but the VSI says otherwise.)