THE CREW of a PSNI helicopter has escaped with minor injuries after it crashed in the Mourne Mountains.
The crash below the summit of the 626m Slieve Shanlieve was close to the crash site of another helicopter which came down with the loss of three lives at the weekend.
The police aircraft suddenly overturned as it was just a few metres above the rough terrain of the western Mournes near Hilltown. Aboard were the pilot, a mapper, a photographer and a member of the police emergency team which was still involved in the follow-up operation after Saturday’s fatal crash.
Cloud cover was low at the time of the crash at about 11am yesterday. Winds were strong near the summit and it was raining heavily.
It was more than three hours before conditions improved and the rescue was mounted. The four injured crew were finally airlifted to hospital by an RAF Sea King helicopter which was part of a co-ordinated rescue operation, which included another Sea King flown by the Irish Coast Guard and based at Baldonnel.
None of officers are thought to have life-threatening injuries. One was said by the PSNI to have suffered head injuries, while two others had neck and back injuries.
The sequence of events leading to the incident was still unclear last night. The PSNI said the helicopter flipped over as it came in to land. “Something occurred as it was depositing specialist personnel to do the final elements of the recovery of the debris and evidence from last week’s tragic crash,” said PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Alistair Finlay.
“Something happened, we don’t know what, if it was the environmental conditions or if it was the helicopter. It turned over and ended up upside down. It was at [a] very low level when this happened.” He said the four injured men were fortunate that other emergency crew were on site and that they had tents for shelter against the difficult conditions.
Ed Kilgore of Mourne Mountain Rescue paid tribute to the volunteer rescue team and recalled how he was alerted to the second helicopter crash.
“The pager message I got simply said ‘call out – major incident’,” he said. “My first thought was ‘not another one’. Normally if it is major, it’s something big like this. The first words I heard were ‘helicopter’, same scene,” he said.