Two people were killed when a helicopter making a routine flight over Rowlett experienced a catastrophic failure Friday, police say. It crashed in a field surrounded on three sides by businesses and on the other side by a busy highway.
The accident happened about 11:30 a.m. Friday. Witnesses said the helicopter passed over a Home Depot on the one side of Highway 66, known in Rowlett as Lakeview Parkway, before the rear separated from the body, sending the helicopter into an uncontrollable spiral.
“I heard a bang over my head that sounded like a car crash, but it was in the air,” said Philip Herndon, a truck driver who was parked just feet from where the chopper crashed. “A few seconds later I heard it hit the ground. It was right beside me.”
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A surveillance camera at a nearby pawn shop showed the impact and showed Herndon and others rushing to the scene. A separate video showed the helicopter spinning toward the ground with the rotor and part of the tail falling a distance away.
A third video recorded a loud noise that witnesses say happened during the fall before the chopper landed in the field and burst into flames. Seconds later the separated tail section is seen falling, followed by the propeller.
“The tail rotor had fallen off the helicopter, is what eyewitnesses are telling me,” Rowlett police Ofc. Cruz Hernandez said. “The bulk of the helicopter was in an uncontrollable spin, dropping down from the sky until it made contact with the empty commercial lot.”
More than a dozen people, including Herndon, rushed to the scene with fire extinguishers in an effort to get to the victims. None was successful. Andrew Reyna was cleaning jewelry in the back room of a pawn shop next to the crash scene when he heard the crash.
“We heard a loud boom, it just didn’t sound good. We were kind of scared, it didn’t sound right," he said. "So I told my manager and my manager opened the back door and he saw the smoke and he told me to grab a fire extinguisher but we couldn’t because the heat was too bad.”
Police said the area of the crash was a miracle, given the lack of control the pilot had and the businesses and roads near the site. The National Transportation Safety Board will have to determine what caused the helicopter to come apart.
Footage of the helicopter crash has made its way to social media HERE.
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