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It sounds like something out of a bad movie, but apparently an unidentified helicopter has just collided with a crane on top of a building in Vauxhall, Central London, bringing the chopper down, and the crane with it.
The crash happened around 8AM this morning, right in the middle of the commuter rush. Details are still a little sketchy, but according to people on the ground, debris from the crash is strewn across Wandsworth Road right near Vauxhall.
The crane itself was positioned on top of a new high-rise development, and is apparently now hanging halfway down the building. The crash and subsequent damage and debris have caused transport chaos.
Hopefully, all involved are OK, but apparently some four ambulances are in attendance, which makes me fear the worst. [BBC]
Update: Unfortunately, two people have been confirmed dead, with 11 casualties in total. Four people have been taken to hospital, with four treated at the scene. Our thoughts are with their families.
As you can see from the below, it’s carnage around the scene of the accident.
Crane hanging off new tower block after apparent #helicopter crash at #vauxhall twitter.com/politicseditor…
— William Green (@politicseditor) January 16, 2013
Helicopter crash today in Central London twitter.com/bensmith130/st…
— Ben Smith (@bensmith130) January 16, 2013
Just witness an horrific crash! Helicopter hit a crane, spiralled into the ground! twitter.com/bottle_bohemia…
— Aaron James Rodgers (@bottle_bohemia) January 16, 2013
Ok apparently a helicopter just crash landed in front of me twitter.com/xammillion/sta…
— Max James Tolhurst (@xammillion) January 16, 2013
Helicopter just hit a crane and crashed a few metres in front of me in vauxhall. Completely shaken. twitter.com/QuinMurray/sta…
— Quin (@QuinMurray) January 16, 2013
Part of the crane on the ground by the crash site. twitter.com/QuinMurray/sta…
— Quin (@QuinMurray) January 16, 2013
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Just glad nobody on the ground seems to have been hurt. Sympathy to the family(ies) of those on board.
Looking at the debris strewn across the road, it’ll be amazing if no one got hit. But you’re right, our deepest sympathies go out to those hurt, and the families of those caught up in the awful mess.
My train went through as it happened, I was at the end of the carriage though so I didn’t have a window, but noticed people looking around.
Waterloo seemed eerily quiet and I only found out when I got to work.
when I heard I thought that it would be this new building, I think it’s the only large construction going on in the area at the moment? Plus the weather doesn’t help much at all.
Horrible accident.
This is what happens when you try to navigate London using Apple maps
Oh dear. I’m no advocate of political correctness but give it at least 2 hours before joking about people who just died
+1
Sorry, wasn’t aware of the two hour rule! I guess those two hours make it all ok.
Got to obey the 2hr rule.
Damn, will remember that in future before visiting sickipedia
comedy = tragedy + time (exponential)
In reality Apple maps wins this round. Google maps is out of date and doesn’t even show the building with the crane that the helicopter hit. AM is way more up to date.
I believe I’ve passed the 2hr threshold so yeah. Whatever.
I’ve actually come to the conclusion now that maps wasn’t involved, the crash was organised by Tesco to divert media attention away from the horse burgers.
Perhaps they thought the building was flat like the Eiffel tower
Seems quiet in my office so far this morning…
Thoughts out to everyone involved!
Visibility is appauling up there! No wonder it crashed, respect goes out to those on-board.
Nasty weather this morning, 700m of visibility and near complete cloud cover at 100ft above the ground. Not particularly good weather to be flying about low level in a helicopter. Pretty easy to get disorientated in much better weather than this.
Usually I like to post a lighthearted, sometime funny message. But not today this is truly tragic. My heart goes out to those involved.
Thoughts to the families.
Looking at the pictures, it’s so cloudy I don’t know how anybody could fly in that atall.
So a huey hit a crane and now two souls have lost their lives and nine or so have been injured and are now seeking treatment in hospital.
Lets hope that crane had one of those hazard/warning lights on it otherwise someone’s getting sued.
What if it had gone down and melted a bus full of nuns? How would you write the headline on that one?
The crane had no lights, I don’t think it had to because the crane itself is not a tall structure it just happen to be on a tall structure.
Structures over 150m tall (which this was) legally only need to be lit at night. By day, aircraft should not be flying in conditions where they would miss them so they are not required (except those on instrument approaches at somewhere like Heathrow).
“Nuns struck from above” – The Mirror
“Jesus booty calls bus of nuns” – The Sun
“Bus of virgins wiped out” – The Star
You were supposed to say ‘Nun soup’!
Quote from critically acclaimed movie, ‘Short Circuit’. The clue was in the use of ‘huey’.
I’m not sure how to feel that the first thing I said in my head was “nun soup”! Ben-ja-miiiin!
I failed
Although I’ve been fielding job offers from newspapers since 11.08
That sucks. My thoughts go out to them, along with the other 44.5 folk in the UK that will die from accidental death today, however unspectacular, as well as the 1,350 that succumb to disease or illness.
Ok it’s been more than 2 hours.
- I’m just suprised there were any Police left in London to respoond.
And where was Superman during all this madness? This would have been perfect for him.
And don’t tell me he’s in a slump again!
He’s clearly suffering from depression.
We did. With our new, cost effective rapid response units:
http://goo.gl/b5UzX
Nice DW – Have you driven one of the new “interceptor” Skoda’s? makes and aweful lot of noise considering it moves like a slug (compared to our old one). Not to mention the fact that it just doesn’t start sometimes and all the electrics switch off!
We have the diesel Hyundai i30′s on our borough. Has a 0-60 time of about February.
They have a habit of its electics completely dying when you try to switch your blues-n-twos on. Good thing we don’t need them much, eh?
Think I’ve said too much…
Oh “progress” what a load of arse.
Looks like cars aren’t the only vehicles that would benefit from autonomous control. Who knows maybe one day a LIDARS will be on flying vehicles not just Google’s cars. It’s a shame the incident happened, But very lucky there wasn’t any more fatalities considering it happened at 8am.
Most planes are flown by computers, only take off and landing are done by humans, unless there is turbulence in which case a human takes over. But the issue here appears the be that the aircraft didn’t have enough sensors to be able to detect the crane so the pilot couldn’t see it or read a display to tell him it was there.
Thinking about it with the conditions even more sensors may have struggled to detect the crane as the structure has a very small cross section. Autonomy is often considered scary by people not in field of engineering, it’s also disliked as it does put people out of jobs. However it’s something we’ll eventually have to embrace
Helicopters are almost always flown by hand as its too difficult to make an autopilot for them.
No civilian planes have sensors to detect solid obstacles. They may have maps, they may have weather radar, they may get a screen with other planes on it, but not obstacle sensors.
A pilot will probably only switch off the autopilot and control the plane manually in SEVERE turbulence which means the aircraft is nearly uncontrollable (people flying out of seats, food going everywhere) and this type of turbulence is very rare.
No aircraft have the sort of sensors that would give any warning about cranes etc. Technological advances would perhaps be useful, but it would be hard to convey this information to the pilot as flying through London, it would be alerting him every second that he would likely ignore the warnings. Also, they wont work in thick fog as on cars they use lasers, the use of radar is restricted as it can be dangerous (planes cant use it on the ground) so that is possibly not the solution. Also radar resolution is very poor and they have a slow refresh/scanning rate.
The system is such that aircraft shouldn’t get into these situations in the first place, this is done by careful pre-flight planning and weather assessment. If it becomes necessary to divert due to weather, this should ideally be to somewhere with a good chance of landing safely (keeping out of cloud or fog).
I would have been in St. George’s Tower today if I had not been late to get to the site. I work for a consulting engineering company and the Tower is one of our jobs. There is a Haki stair tower adjacent to the main working crane on the building. I was supposed to be there today to inspect the physical ties holding the crane to the building. I was on my way via the tube and there were delays which caused me to be late. I would have been onsite when the helicopter hit the crane arm.
Glad you avoided this.
I was due to be nowhere near it and I wasn’t so I had a less lucky escape.
Pilot error, seriously they need better training before being allowed to fly over highly populated areas.
I think you will find he was one of the most highly trained pilots in the UK, having previously flown events from the Olympic Games to James Bond and with over 10,000 hours in the air.
Lets wait for the report before the blame – shall we?
I love “eye witness” accounts. Like the half dozen people on BBC News who claimed they saw it take off from Battersea, fly very low and then hit the crane. “I though it looked strange when it took off and stayed low” said one woman on the news bulletin, “and then it hit the tower.”
Funny. It never took off from Battersea.