NZ helo crash

[aeromed202]

Just caught this story. An early Christmas present for the pilot I guess.



A pilot cheated death after his helicopter crashed while installing a city's giant Christmas tree. Greg Gribble was installing the seven-storey, fibre optic Telecom Christmas tree on Te Wero Island, in Auckland, New Zealand, when the incident happened.Footage filmed by TV crews covering the Christmas tree installation show the helicopter slowly descending from about 25 feet when suddenly its blades appear to get caught in cables attached to scaffolding.

Read more: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/11/23/helicopter-pilot-cheats-death-in-christmas-tree-crash-115875-23582334/#ixzz1eXC3SNJC

[kilo delta]

I saw this on another forum earlier. It looked to me like the rope/cable that was suspended below the helicopter snapped and was catapulted back up into the rotors.


Edit: here's a vid...

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Edit 2: and another from a different angle on this link

http://www.3news.co.nz/Lucky-to-come-away-unscathed/tabid/367/articleID/233786/Default.aspx

[stansdds]

That was bad, but could have ended much worse.

[Wing_Z]

Seems the longline was shorter than the tower, so the helo had to come down and hover to get unshackled.
The ground crewman accidentally tensioned the cable which snagged the main rotor.

http://www.3news.co.nz/Chopper-pilot-had-20-years-experience/tabid/309/articleID/233796/Default.aspx

Absolute miracle no-one was injured.
Not to mention: an arms' length away is about a gazillion dollars' worth of superyacht anchorage!