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Hospital
copter crashes shortly after takeoff
Crew suffers minor injuries
BY DAVID OVALLE
dovalle@herald.com
A
helicopter taking off from Miami Children's Hospital on the way to pick up a
patient crashed Saturday afternoon, shattering hospital windows and
scattering chunks of rotor blade for blocks.
The four-person crew
aboard -- a pilot, copilot and two staff members -- suffered minor injuries,
said hospital spokeswoman Marcia Diaz de Villegas.
They had just taken
off, en route to pick up a patient at Fisherman's Hospital in the Keys, when
the helicopter came down, becoming wedged between the parking structure and
the main hospital building.
The National
Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration are
investigating the cause of the accident.
An NTSB official said
the pilot was distracted by the hospital's awning, which was flapping in the
wind, before bumping into the structure.
''The pilot was
executing a normal departure,'' the NTSB's John Lovell said, adding that
there were no mechanical failures. Lovell said the pilot's flight record was
clean.
Witnesses said the
Lifeflight helicopter flew too close to the south visitor's parking
structure, clipping it with its blade and careening into the street.
Although the
hospital's helicopter pad is surrounded by buildings -- the main hospital, a
research center and two parking garages -- the crash Saturday is the first
time there has been a problem with a helicopter clearing the area, de
Villegas said.
An elevated heliopad,
however, is being built just yards away from the current launch pad, which
has been in use since 1986. The new heliopad, which is expected to open early
next year, is being built because the hospital is putting up another building
on the site of the current launchpad.
The 20-year-old
helicopter is the hospital's only one. It received a routine maintenance
check Friday, de Villegas said. The Sikorsky S-76A, which has a rotor blade
diameter of 44 feet, is stored at Tamiami Airport.
''It is certainly out
of service for now,'' de Villegas said.
When the helicopter
landed, the pilot tumbled out of the cockpit, his left hand bleeding.
Witnesses said the other three men pulled the pilot to safety. He was treated
at the hospital, said spokeswoman Rachel Perry. None of the crew members have
been named.
After the
helicopter's ''hard landing,'' sheared palm fronds littered the street and
chunks of the copter's shredded rotor blade sat in the grass yards away.
One piece of the
blade lay atop the glass awning under the hospital's south entrance, another
blew through a first-floor window and ended up in a hospital hallway.
Black nicks from the
blade scarred the parking garage. Some hospital workers picked up shards of
debris as keepsakes.
Odilio Ortega, who
lives near the hospital, said his homeowner's association has complained to
the hospital about the helicopter's low-level flights.
De Villegas said the
hospital is receptive to neighborhood complaints, which focus on helicopter
noise and reverberations.
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