Helicopter Crash Central London
 

BBC reporting a helicopter hit a crane on top of a building near Vauxhall/Waterloo. Went down in streets. Emergency services blocking off area.

Helicopter Crash in London
 

Sky News have just reported a helicopter crash in the Vauxhall district of London. Lets hope there are no serious injuries or worse. The pictures show flames and black smoke, so it looks like a serious incident with cars involved as well.

BBC News - Helicopter 'crashes into crane' in London

I imagine it will get updated as the story unfolds.

Low(ish) viz in freezing fog reported at London City
METAR: EGLC 160820Z 34003KT 0700 R09/0800 R27/0750 FZFG BKN001 M03/M03 Q1012

Fog has gone, photos on TV show blue sky, buildings in background, smoke and flames.

Sky News reporting one person on board, A109.

Quite foggy even at ground level when I passed through there about 6 this morning. Just heard on the radio the chopped seems to have struck the arm of the tower crane which is on the building site across from MI5. Landed on a 7 seater car which caught fire with people in it according to a witness

Crane is now leaning over by all accounts

One t w i t t e r witness states it hit a crane.

Does not look good, hope they got out.

Twitter feed from somebody on the scene. There are a couple of photos but be warned, it's not pretty and it's only 25 minutes old https://twitter.com/craiglet

Viz looks low on the crane pic but that might be a trick of the image. It's uncomfortably close to MI5 HQ.

Another feed with images: https://twitter.com/bottle_bohemia

It is foggy in south London. It certainly was just before 0800 when this happened. I am looking towards the scene albeit 2 or 3 miles away and the fog has only just cleared the tower cranes between me and the scene.

St George's Wharf Tower and crane (old photo)

http://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/...6_aeea2f0c.jpg

This NOTAM?

HIGH RISE JIB CRANE (LIT AT NIGHT) OPR WI 1NM 5129N 00007W, HGT 770FT AMSL (VAUXHALL, CENTRAL LONDON), OPS CTC 12-10-0429/AS 2.

Helicopter Crash Central London
 

Surprised they were flying in it to be honest

Hope all goes well but it does look bad

:(

Helicopter Crash Central London
 

Any idea who the operator is???

Presumably the most likely to be involved would be a legitimate flight, such as air ambulance, police or traffic?
Doesn't look good for those aboard and possibly 3 or more vehicles hit by falling debris/wreckage.
Although it's close to the MI5 building, don't see any reason to big it up into anything more than a tragic accident due to poor visibility.

Another set of photographs of the tower and crane.

Its MI6 not MI5 ! MI5 is on the north side of the river !

And if you've ever driven around that part of the world, you'll find the MI6 building is nestled between some of those ghastly residential new developments and some old buildings on the other side.... so its not exactly exposed.

There was some construction work going on to build yet another ghastly residential development..... so let's stop the MI6 conspiracy theories shall we ! Seems like the thing hit the construction crane, nothing more.

I'm just down the river in Greenwich, have been looking out of the window since before 8am. From my position 15 floors up (150ft?) Viz is and has been well below one mile, and the tops of 4 building cranes which are under 200ft high nearby are in the mist.

It may well be variable elsewhere on the river, but the tops of cranes here are certainly invisible from about 200m away.

:(

Icare9, With battersea helipad around 1/2 a mile from the incident area it could have been any type of traffic. No one is suggesting there is any link with the MI5 building. Merely using it as a reference point for the location of the building to which the crane is erected on

The crane has been there so long it's on Google streetview.... :cool:

Plus the location of the crane is no doubt in a NOTAM... seems like a good point of reference to me !

OK I know absolutely nothing about helicopters. Are they allowed to fly in this stuff? I know they can do IFR, but 200m?

"Presumably the most likely to be involved would be a legitimate flight, such as air ambulance, police or traffic?"

The Met Police and air ambulance Twitter feeds have already said they aren't involved except professionally.

The aircraft appears to have been dark blue. The crane isn't that far south of the river, at 51.484869,-0.128156 while the crash site is 51.482574,-0.127299 so the post-impact descent would have been almost due south, about 250m away. The wreckage path seems to lie on a N-S axis along the road with the bulk of the wreckage ending up near the railway bridge. Some wreckage is on the buildings on the south side of Wandsworth Road, so it evidently hit them as well before falling into the road outside.

This shows the aftermath at ground zero pretty well, can't see any wreckage though
Helicopter crash at Wandsworth Road, Vauxhall - YouTube

Ground level

I've only been there once, as pax, and it wasn't IMC, but from memory London Specials like you to be at 800ft, over the river i.e. on the Heli Route.

It is very controlled airspace.

Flight rules
 

From the London Heliport flight procedures, "Special helicopter procedures within the London CTR - refer to the UK AIP AD 2.22 (EGLL) for details."

Bizarrely, Google only finds a copy on a Russian web site,
http://va-transaero.ru/files/charts/EGLL.pdf

Story live on UK satellite Sky TY channel 503

Don't 32 Sqdn Fly A109?

"from memory London Specials like you to be at 800ft, over the river i.e. on the Heli Route."

The crane is reportedly 770ft and is only about 50m south of the river just where it bends from north-south to east-west. If, to conjecture, you're approaching from the north along the river and miss the bend in the fog you haven't got a lot of room left even at 800ft.

Have just spoken to a friend. He said the cranes jib(long arm) is visibly hanging beside the shaft of the tower. Reports also suggesting 2 fatalities

Police have confirmed 2 dead. :sad:

BBC quoting police statement that 2 persons killed in this crash.

32 Sqn operate 2 A109E of the 3 initially delivered in 2006.

Pic of crane https://mobile.twitter.com/stanchers...4249856/photos

From the pictures, the flames on the ground are in Wandsworth Road, about 200m due south of the crane. So this does sound plausible.

Yes, the jib of the crane (previously rising at about 45 degrees) was hit and now hangs vertically down with part of it missing. Very precarious.

The helicopter appears to have be travelling south at some rate and after hitting the crane, which is right on the south bank of the Thames, continued southwards losing altitude over Nine Elms Lane (where some debris from the crane fell to the ground), whilst losing height narrowly missing Market Towers, finally hitting the ground immediately outside Wendle Court on the Wandsworth Road, falling just short of the railway bridge carrying all Waterloo mainline trains.

Sky News aviation expert (clue) stated all Heli's in London are under Radar control. I thought Heli flying in the CTR via the approved routes was VFR with base and vis limits. can anyone confirm?

If under radar control, perhaps the radar controllers cannot see that low or paint the crane on their displays with the returns. Very sad.

Do 109 pilots have a IR as part of the type rating? Understand not many helicopter pilots have IR's, other than North Sea as training is expensive etc.

You can fly a 109 without an IR as long as you only fly VFR. From the reports it looks like this aircraft was not flying IFR or VFR. Well not VFR within the regulations anyway.

Helicopters on standard routes are NOT usually under radar control such that navigation is being conducted from the ground. Occasionally separation may be applied by radar but if it was just one helicopter involved ATC would simply monitor the situation.

CAA Rules for the use of the Helicopter in central London
 

CAA Rules

http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/7/EIS%2006.pdf

indeed.. and 1mb off on the atlimeter setting and there's no room left.