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1 dead, 1 injured in HPD chopper crash

HOUSTON – One officer was killed and the other one is in surgery after a Houston Police Department helicopter crashed early Saturday in an apartment complex in north Houston, according to local officials.

https://www.click2houston.com/news/l...north-houston/

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HOUSTON – One officer was killed, and the other officer is in critical condition after a Houston Police Department helicopter crashed early Saturday in an apartment complex in north Houston, according to local officials.

Houston Police Department Chief Art Acevedo identified Jason Knox, 35, as the tactical flight officer involved in the crash and later died at the hospital. He was the son of Houston councilmember at-large Mike Knox.

Acevedo said Jason Knox was a "good man.”

“If someone would have told me, a few hours later, we would have an aircraft down,” Acevedo said. “We would lose a really good man. I would have said no way.”

Knox had been with the police department for eight and half years and had been with their air unit for one year and three months,

HPD also asked for prayers for senior police officer Chase Cormier, 35, who was airlifted to Memorial Hermann hospital and went into surgery Saturday morning. Acevedo said the pilot was “very banged up." At a news briefing Saturday afternoon, Acevedo said Cormier was out of surgery and conscious.

According to HPD, Cormier was sworn in as an HPD officer in July 2006. He is currently assigned to the Air & Marine Divison. Cormier has been with the air support unit for three years.

During a news conference at the Texas Medical Center, Mayor Sylvester Turner called it a bad morning.

“I ask for the city of Houston to continue to lift up both families, especially lift up the family of the police officer that has died... At the same time, lift up the entire HPD family."

Here is what happened

The HPD crash was reported at about 2 a.m. at the Biscayne At Cityview Apartment complex located at 17050 Imperial Valley Drive, near the Greenspoint neighborhood.

According to Acevedo, the two officers were in the 75 Fox helicopter from the Houston Police Department’s Air Operations Unit and were investigating reports of bodies floating in a bayou.

“They responded right before 2 a.m. and within minutes we got reports from the Houston Forensic Science Center crime scene unit that was working a murder scene at the 17000 block of Imperial Valley that our helicopter had gone down,” Acevedo said.

Officials from the Houston Fire Department, the Houston Police Department and the Harris County Sheriff’s Office all rushed to the scene, Acevedo said.

The pilot and the co-pilot were trapped in the wreckage for a while as crews worked to get them out.

Firefighters “worked feverishly to extricate and cut the pilots out. They literally had to cut the pilots out of the wreckage,” Acevedo said.

Once freed, the officers were airlifted to Memorial Hermann hospital for treatment and both were in critical condition with serious injuries, Acevedo said.

“The wreckage was pretty significant,” Acevedo said. “There were no flames involved and that’s been a blessing. And the silver lining. The other silver lining was the pilot was able to avoid the apartment buildings."

None of the residents of the apartment complex were injured in the crash.

“They were able to avoid going into the actual apartment buildings where people were sleeping and were able to, basically, they clipped a part of the clubhouse,” Acevedo said.

The injured pilot and technical flight officer’s families were picked up and rushed to the hospital.

What’s next?

The investigation into the HPD helicopter crash will be extensive, according to Acevedo.

The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Agency will conduct investigations, along with the Houston Police Department. In a briefing Saturday afternoon, Acevedo said the joint investigation could take weeks, if not months.

HPD will approach the crash as a homicide investigation.

“We have lost one of our own," Acevedo said. "We won’t leave any stone unturned as part of our investigation until the cause of this crash. We will look at it from a criminal standpoint to make sure there was no criminal activity that led to this tragic incident.”

Acevedo said the department was going to shut down flights until further notice as a precautionary measure as investigations continue. Meanwhile, HPD will get flight support from the Department of Public Safety and the Harris County Air Operations Division.

At about 3 a.m., while police were at the crash site, Acevedo said that shots rang out across the street and six suspects were taken into custody. Acevedo said this was a separate incident that was unrelated to the crash.

Helicopter involved was an MD 369E reg N8375F The helicopter had been involved in a previous incident in May 2016 where it was shot at and took 5 rounds from an AR-15 which according to the report caused substantial damage.

Interesting. Thanks for the additional details, NMHFM.

Reportedly searching for bodies floating in a bayou and clipped a building. Several tall structures in the area of that bayou and just west of it.

Some video of the incident. Fair warning that some may not want to watch it, or, in this particular case, listen to it.

Not sure why you'd be out at 2 am searching for bodies. You'd think it's a task that could wait a few hours until daylight.

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Originally Posted by gulliBell (Post 10771393)

Not sure why you'd be out at 2 am searching for bodies. You'd think it's a task that could wait a few hours until daylight.

If there had been a report of a body in the water then I imagine most police forces would respond immediately on the off-chance that the body might still be alive!

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Originally Posted by gulliBell (Post 10771393)

Not sure why you'd be out at 2 am searching for bodies. You'd think it's a task that could wait a few hours until daylight.

I don't know the answer to this, other than I think HPD's Air Support Division pretty much always has something in the air, weather permitting. The scene was apparently hot, with a Crime Scene Unit already there. Other than that, details are apparently sketchy. Today's article in the Houston Chronicle does not add much. It provides a history of HPD air ops and previous incidents, though its reference to the 2016 incident does not mention that 75Fox was the unit involved.

The link below has audio and a transcript of the radio traffic between the first on scene and dispatchers. It might be unsettling to some.

https://abc13.com/helicopter-crash-h...ition/6144893/

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Originally Posted by gulliBell (Post 10771393)

Not sure why you'd be out at 2 am searching for bodies. You'd think it's a task that could wait a few hours until daylight.

I used to fly for the Police, if we'd had a report of a body(s) in the water, we'd launch to look. Why wouldn't you if the weather's suitable?

Bodies in the water were a job for the Water Police. But sometimes they would push the body onto the shore and call for the regular cops. And they would nudge it back into the water. Nobody wanted to touch a body that was floating, as it would have been in the water for a few days, was awfully smelly, and the new home for a bunch of sea critters.

I never did a night search for a report of a body, though we would go out if it was a plane going down or a mayday from a boat. Otherwise, a body didn't need urgent attention unless it was likely to drift away and sink again.

Question: Is this service NVIS equipped? Is this capability routinely employed in police op's in the USA?

If you are going to assume a body in the water could still be alive, why would you send anything except a winch equipped helicopter with a rescue crewman?

Unless you coordinate surface craft as well your non-winch equipped helicopter can just sit and watch someone drown.

Is it not that a body in the water will not surface until days later ?

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Originally Posted by Scattercat (Post 10771869)

Question: Is this service NVIS equipped? Is this capability routinely employed in police op's in the USA?

Unknown, and yes.

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Originally Posted by Michael Gee (Post 10772024)

Is it not that a body in the water will not surface until days later ?

If the person is not wearing a flotation device when they go into the water then the body will usually submerge until the decomposition process creates gas in the cavities helping it float to the surface again.

As AC says, no-one wants to touch bodies that have been in the water for a while, the flesh strips easily from the bones if you try to pick them up and they smell to high heaven.

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Originally Posted by [email protected] (Post 10771934)

A lot of places over here just short haul people. Many videos out there for you to look up.

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Originally Posted by Gordy (Post 10772344)

A lot of places over here just short haul people. Many videos out there for you to look up.

Try doing that with a decomposing body and see how far you get :)

I presume by short haul, you mean rescue basket or similar - no problem with that as long as the casualty can get themselves into it which means they must be conscious and relatively uninjured. For an injured casualty there is no substitute for putting a rescue swimmer or winchman into the water with them.

FYI: I think it should be noted that the "body of water" being described is nothing more than a rather large "drainage ditch" flowing through an urban area. If it's the Greens Bayou I'm thinking of, one could probably throw a rope across it with a little effort in the area of the accident. But I have to agree with not wanting to pull the body out if it's been there for awhile.
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....2d676446b4.jpg

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Originally Posted by [email protected] (Post 10772440)

Nope, talking live bodies, dead ones can wait and be fished out with a net. Like I said, you do not always need a winch. We do lots of human cargo loads all day long on powerline work, and one of my former pilots does HEC rescues for Sonoma County SO in California.

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I never did a night search for a report of a body,

Did quite a few in our local river, usually because it wasn't known if it was alive or dead and usually in conjunction with the local Inshore Lifeboat. As I said: why wouldn't you?

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Originally Posted by [email protected] (Post 10772440)

You sound like a lot of fun at a party.

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Originally Posted by [email protected] (Post 10772440)

Try doing that with a decomposing body and see how far you get :)

And yes, I have seen how tough that is----I may have talked to you about that very subject on the radio in June of 85 if you were there. I was on one of the Nimrods conducting the top cover during body recovery for Air India Flight 182 South West of Ireland. From what I remember, I was glad to be 1,000 feet above it all and not on the end of a winch.

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Originally Posted by helonorth (Post 10772609)

You sound like a lot of fun at a party.

In fact I am but this is to do with the harsh reality of rescues or body recoveries, one of which is much more 'fun' than the other:ok:

Gordy - I completely get all the HEC stuff and for that a winch is not required - pulling a casualty out of the water however, especially at night, is a different matter altogether. How many of your HEC pax are injured, unconscious or otherwise not fit and healthy?

No, I was in NI doing support helo stuff in 85 but heard lots of unpleasant stories about fishing all those bodies from the sea. Had my own experiences of that in later years doing UKSAR:ok:

It’s great to see the extensive medical knowledge about dead people in water amongst our members.... I’m really surprised that this thread has digressed so far off topic ... and before anyone shoots me down I have seen bodies dragged out of water.

Yeah. The diversion happened when I mentioned it was rather odd scrambling the helicopter at 2.00 am to search for a body in a bayou. I still think it could have waited until first light.

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Originally Posted by gulliBell (Post 10772741)

Yeah. The diversion happened when I mentioned it was rather odd scrambling the helicopter at 2.00 am to search for a body in a bayou. I still think it could have waited until first light.

Agreed - :ok:

What is so unsound with a law enforcement agency utilizing a helicopter with FLIR and NVG trained crew to perform a search at night? I would expect any minimally trained/experienced crew to immediately abort at the first instance the perceived risk becomes too great. What do you think crews are doing when flying patrol duty during the same hours? I have thousands of hours performing this mission (one that has a far better safety record then the HEMS industry).

Just news, or news drama....

it doesn’t make the accident any better...

https://www.liveleak.com/view?t=9WEtr_1588636183

Tactical Flight Officer Jason Knox, 35, died from his injuries. The pilot, Senior Officer Chase Cormier, 35, was last listed in critical condition at Memorial Hermann Hospital.

The crew was responding to a call about bodies floating in a nearby bayou. No bodies were found and it wasn't clear if the call was legitimate.

As firefighters and officers worked to free the men from the wreckage, shots rang out across the street from the crash. Six people were taken into custody in what was believed to be an unrelated incident, Acevedo said.

Despite the questions and the possible coincidences, shooting at aircraft isn't unheard of.

"It is not commonly known that law enforcement aviation comes under fire on a regular basis across our country," Acevedo said.

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Originally Posted by JimEli (Post 10773675)

..What is so unsound with a law enforcement agency utilizing a helicopter with FLIR and NVG trained crew to perform a search at night?

The same question might be asked of the Rescue 116 crash in Ireland. They had all the good gear but still flew into a lighthouse at night that was marked on their map. But their purpose in being there was for a live person, not a dead body. The purpose of the operation is a relevant point, and searching for a body in a bayou at night might have waited until first light. I dare say if they had waited we wouldn't be here now talking about it. The outcome for the dead body either way is the same.

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Originally Posted by gulliBell (Post 10773785)

But their purpose in being there was for a live person, not a dead body.

I do not think we have ascertained that they were searching for a dead body. I suspect they thought they were searching in the hopes it was a live body.

A report of "bodies in the bayou" is different from "people in the bayou" - the second one infers that they are trying to stay alive.

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law enforcement aviation comes under fire on a regular basis across our country

This is the really sad part, though.

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This is the really sad part, though.

Yes, but not much different from scumbags throwing bricks at firemen and paramedics in UK cities - the only difference is that they don't have guns!

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I do not think we have ascertained that they were searching for a dead body. I suspect they thought they were searching in the hopes it was a live body.

The question is - what was their plan if they had found a live person in the water at night? Try an ad-hoc letdown over the water to put a skid in the water??? How well would that have gone? We have all seen instances on these pages where pilots have felt obliged to try things outside their experience or capabilities when life is at stake - sometimes they get away with it but the majority of cases end in tears.

Yes, get a helicopter up to have a look but mobilise ground/water units to assist in case quick action is needed to preserve life - the helicopter itself is just a location tool if they can't carry out a rescue.

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Originally Posted by [email protected] (Post 10774295)

Yes, get a helicopter up to have a look but mobilise ground/water units to assist in case quick action is needed to preserve life - the helicopter itself is just a location tool if they can't carry out a rescue.

I believe this was the case. I do not know of any unit that would do a short haul at night with the exception of one that I know of who have NVGs.

Incidentally, there was a water rescue in the town where I am based yesterday---with winch, in daylight.
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....5ba8f2f4bd.jpg
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....e433c302c5.jpg

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The question is - what was their plan if they had found a live person in the water at night

As pointed out by wrench at post #18 it's not a body of water but a drainage ditch/creek.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....1f54ef855c.png

The HEMS industry best practice is not to consider patient details when making the go/no-go decision. However here, you people are demanding the opposite. How many HEMS aircrews died flying to pickup the drunk who fell off a park bench? Interesting.

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The HEMS industry best practice is not to consider patient details when making the go/no-go decision.

There is a practical limit though, you aren't going to scramble to an ingrown toenail.

Similarly, if the body is dead, letting it wait till morning won't affect the outcome for the victim.

Sorry, I totally disagree. A proper 'Chinese Wall' means the flight crew have no medical information and the medical crew no met or other flight information. The moment the wall is breached the crew members behave to deal with information they shouldnt have, or worse still their uneducated perception of that information.

Scrambling to an IGTN is a failure of dispatch and the management's policies. same for a body. Totally agree you shouldnt waste resources on such requests, but that sort of decision shouldnt even get to the ready room.

NTSB has issued a preliminary report that doesn't seem to add much to what is already known. They did not travel to the crash but the site was inspected by the FAA.

Local media appears to be fixated on the report that the helicopter "rotated" before crashing. There are numerous local rumors that the aircraft may have been hit by gunfire. And details of the incident that resulted in the chopper being sent to that site remain murky.

Houston Chronicle article on NTSB report.

I know prune will not post anything I post, but you may want to point out to the forum that KPRC Houston is reporting they have a man in custody for shooting a gun into the air at the time and in the proximity to the helecopter crash.