Helicopter Crash - Vauxhall

BigLights

Surprised there's not a post on this already, as I assume a number of us go past there....I missed it by 40 minutes this morning but I ride right past there, depending on what route I take.

Thoughts will all involved etc.

bigmat

From the BBC live feed:

0921: Lawyer Chris Jenkins, originally from Penarth, was cycling alongside the River Thames when the crash happened.

"I heard a very loud boom that sounded like an articulated lorry crashing or exploding from the other side of the river. I couldn't turn around to see what had happened because I was going quite quickly along Embankment.

"When I got to the office I could see a mushroom-type plume of smoke. It's chaos, sirens everywhere and police boats on the river.

"There are more police vans heading west on Embankment to Vauxhall."



Edit: obviously not a funny incident - thoughts to all involved.

rick_chasey

Two dead according to BBC.

Koncordski

BigMat wrote:

From the BBC live feed:

0921: Lawyer Chris Jenkins, originally from Penarth, was cycling alongside the River Thames when the crash happened.

"I heard a very loud boom that sounded like an articulated lorry crashing or exploding from the other side of the river. I couldn't turn around to see what had happened because I was going quite quickly along Embankment.

"When I got to the office I could see a mushroom-type plume of smoke. It's chaos, sirens everywhere and police boats on the river.

"There are more police vans heading west on Embankment to Vauxhall."



Edit: obviously not a funny incident - thoughts to all involved.

First rule of SCR. He nearly blew it there...

tgotb

Hold on a minute... The crash happened at 8am; isn't he normally pootling through the park at that time?

meanredspider

Can't imagine what a helicopter was doing up in that weather - I read that the police helicopter was grounded because of the fog.

Thoughts to all involved. The Yahoo site said something about somebody rescued from the river. The crane looks a mess. Hope there aren't more casualties.

Roastie

Unbelievable and very sad. Was it quite foggy this morning? Air traffic above cities makes me nervous.

Also quite shocking as my old commute ran right through the crash zone.

suzyb

Just saw this on the BBC news special. When it came on as a change to the schedule first thing you think is "what's happened"

Very lucky there isn't more dead or injured. Thoughts go out to the familes and I hope those injured recover.

il_principe

F*cking terrifying. Here's a pic of part of the crane lying on the road that I cycle every morning. Amazed that only 2 died, and that the heli managed to crash onto the road rather than one of the buildings or the railway line:



I'd planned to leave early this morning for a confreence call as well, but was running late in the end.

MarkAshton

This is my exact route into work. Arrived about 8.10 (Thankfully I was running 5 minutes later than planned and hit lots of red lights on the route).

Police were all a bit manic as you would expect and lots of the red armed police units arriving on the scene. Could see parts of the crane lying on the road. Assuming because it was so close to MI6, thoughts instantly turned to that?

Quickly got turned around and made my way along the embankment. Not sure if the crash channelled every one along the embankment, but there was a serious amount of cyclists! Is it always like that?

MrSweary

My train must've rolled into Waterloo a couple of minutes before it happened at most.. horrible.

notsoblue

Some interesting information (From Reddit)

edit - This is the helicopter - http://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/G-CRST.html
Operated by Castle Air
Helicopter was diverting to Battersea heliport before crash due to weather
**
The Helicopter was a twin engined Agusta 109 with one person aboard;
Weather - EGLC 34003KT 0700 R09/0800 R27/0750 FZFG BKN001 M03/M03 Q10
which means the visibility was 700m, there was freezing fog with clouds at 100 feet, temp of -3
The Crane the chopper struck was marked on aviation charts -
HIGH RISE JIB CRANE (LIT AT NIGHT) OPR WI 1NM 5129N 00007W, HGT 770FT AMSL (VAUXHALL, CENTRAL LONDON), OPS CTC 020 7820 3151 12-10-0429/AS 2.
There are special routes helicopters fly through London. Air Traffic Control like you to be above 800ft directly following the Thames, the max height of the crane was 770ft
http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/7/20100316LondonHeliChart.pdf
http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/7/EIS%2006.pdf
Aircraft altimeters work on the principle of air pressure. One cause for altitude problems for the helicopter would be the weather changing and the pilot not updating his altimeter to the new pressure. His Altimeter would then give a false altitude value and he could have been lower than he thought. The -3 degrees temperature would have incured a 10% error in altitude readings as well.
from UK CAA regulation for Helicopters in London in the area the aircraft was -
" ...pilots navigate by visual reference to ground features with only limited ATC Radar assistance...."
Pilot incapacitation is an issue too like a medical incident.

pangolin

MarkAshton wrote:

Not sure if the crash channelled every one along the embankment, but there was a serious amount of cyclists! Is it always like that?

Today was relatively quiet as cyclists go.

tgotb

pangolin wrote:

MarkAshton wrote:

Not sure if the crash channelled every one along the embankment, but there was a serious amount of cyclists! Is it always like that?

Today was relatively quiet as cyclists go.

Really? At the time I was riding along there (8.15?) it was the busiest I've seen it since Xmas...

itboffin

My friend is the AAIB inspector in charge. very grim & sad accident

Roastie

I'm frankly amazed that there weren't more casualties.

MarkAshton

Does anyone know if the route along nine elms will be open tomorrow morning?

Initialised

I do that sometimes when I'm trying to drop a sniper off on the cranes in the middle of Operation Firestorm on BF3.

TheStone

Not sure if something else has happened, but London's a total mess today. Gridlocked traffic on nearly all of my route this morning (Tooting->City). And that was at 7:15.

...... and it's really, really, really cold! (I guess no chance to warm up squeezing through the traffic).

BigLights

I think its because a large area of Vauxhall is cordoned off. I went by there last night to see what I could see...having managed to get through the outer cordon it's clear that this chopper pilot must have been able to control his craft to some extent...it landed right on the corner, missing the train station, bus station and traffic at the lights. Incredible, and much respect to the pilot.

Then spent some time acting as an outrider for a couple of ambulances stuck in gridlock - offered to try to help, went ahead to cajole some drivers to get out the way (WTF is that all about anyway, how selfish not to move voluntarily), going ahead to let the PCSOs at the junctions know there are ambos on the way to get traffic moving etc. One never knows when one might be waiting for an ambulance.

rjsterry

Yep, Brixton Road was chokka this morning, and I think pretty much the whole area around the crash is closed off, so all 9 Elms and Wandsworth Road traffic is being diverted. Also, there was a train fire at Victoria Station, so that was shut too.