‘Several fatalities’ after two helicopters collide in Finland

HELSINKI: Several people died Saturday when two helicopters carrying a total of five collided mid-air in Finland and crashed to the ground, police said.

“The accident has resulted in several fatalities. The exact number of victims and the identities of the passengers are still being determined,” the police said in a statement.

Media reported that the helicopters had taken off from Estonia and were carrying businessmen, with three people in one and two in the other.

Reports said they collided west of the capital Helsinki around midday. Officials gave no indication of what caused the collision.

Finnish newspaper Iltalehti quoted a witness, Antti Marjanen, as saying they saw one of the helicopters hit the other during a manoeuvre.

“One of them dropped like a stone and the other one more slowly. I didn’t hear any sound,” Marjanen was quoted as saying.

Plane crash in Chad kills two people on rhino monitoring mission

Similarly, six people including three children were also killed when a sightseeing helicopter crashed into the Hudson River in New York on Thursday (April 11), authorities said.

All of those onboard the tourist sightseeing trip, the pilot and a family from Spain, died including two who were taken to a hospital and later succumbed to their injuries.

The chopper’s landing skids were seen protruding from the river beside a tunnel vent as several boats clustered around the impact site.

Police from both New York and New Jersey, which is on the opposite side of the river from Manhattan, responded to the scene along with fire department vessels.

The NBC4 channel reported that its own helicopter was unable to take off because of conditions, with the weather in New York on April 11 gusty under thick cloud cover.

Witnesses told the outlet that a rotor blade had come loose from the aircraft, while footage on social media showed pieces of the aircraft breaking off and the helicopter plunging into the waterway.

“A Bell 206 helicopter crashed and is submerged in the Hudson River in New York City,” the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement.

“The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate.”