Leicester City Owner's Helicopter Has Crashed

[wolf63]

I know less than nothing about football but this looks like there may be injuries or fatalities. I hope that nobody has to pronounce the owner's surname.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-46006470

[ichkeria]

The news readers must be panicking

[wolf63]

I was undecided about posting that comment as someone might have a pop at me. But I couldn't help myself. ☺

[Mamyalynne]

Dreadful.

[ichkeria]

Bad and probably tragic news in any case.

Impressive piece of pronunciation actually I must say but I doubt it’ll be repeated often: let the ticker do the work

[ummmm]

I read predicted 8 dead.

[Prudie]

That's made my blood run cold. Appalling.

[anneasquith]

Am I the only one who thinks helicopter travel is not very safe ?

[gness]

And mine, Prudie.....so, so sad. x

[ichkeria]

I think that too Anne.
It must be terrifying when it starts to spin

[wolf63]

I feel that the problem with helicopters is that they fly so near to people and buildings.

[Maydup]

The radio silence on this would imply the worse. Dreadful news.

[Maydup]

While we await news lets all keep the Srivaddhanaprabha family in our thoughts.

[tonyav]

Avatar Image Maydup The radio silence on this would imply the worse. Dreadful news.

I also think the same, Maydup. A terrible tragedy.

Planes can glide helicopters don't.

[wolf63]

I have a statement but no link

Sky Sports are reporting that Leicester City vice-chairman Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha was also NOT on board the helicopter.

They earlier said Jon Rudkin, the Director of Football at Leicester City was also NOT on board

[tonyav]

Link here, Susan.

Vice-chairman Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, the owner's son who is known as Top, and the director of football, John Rudkin, were not on-board, according to Sky sources.

https://news.sky.com/story/helicopter-crash-outside-leicester-city-stadium-11537872

[EDDIE51]

Helicopters are inherently less safe than fixed wing aircraft. If the engine fails on a fixed wing aircraft it can glide to a landing , possibly many miles away if it has enough height. A Helicopter will lose forward flight and start to drop the second the engine stops. It then has to land by 'Auto rotation'. The rotor is put into 'neutral' so it no longer produces lift. At the last second or so the rotor is put back into the 'Lift' position.This halts the drop and allows a safe landing. But it takes a lot of skill . Very few pilots have had to do it 'for real'. Helicopters are very much 'over engineered ' to ensure such events are very rare.

[jno]

tail propeller failed to work, said a witness.

If that happens it probably doesn't matter if you're anywhere near a high building or whatever. I presume they do regular checks on everything as with planes.

[EDDIE51]

^ If the tail rotor failed the Copter will just go into an uncontrollable spin. The tail rotor has just one purpose ,to counteract the force of the main rotor. Failure of this would make the aircraft rotate rapidly in the opposite direction to the main rotor while dropping rapidly to the ground.

[Mamyalynne]

The waiting must be hell for the families of those on board.

[jno]

that seems to be what happened, Eddie

//Eyewitness reports indicated that the helicopter only just cleared the roof of the stands, stayed in the air briefly and spiralled down to earth after reportedly developing a fault with its tail rotor.//