Four people were taken to hospital on Saturday after a helicopter crashed at North Perry Airport in Pembroke Pines, in the latest aviation accident to hit the small South Florida airfield. Emergency crews responded to the scene, where the aircraft came to rest crumpled on its side between two parked planes, and an investigation into what went wrong was under way by the evening.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the aircraft involved was a Robinson R44 helicopter that crashed at 11:20 in the morning. A spokesperson at North Perry Airport said the helicopter belonged to a tour company, underscoring that the flight was a routine operation of the kind that takes off from the airfield regularly before the crash brought it down.
A witness who saw the entire sequence said the helicopter barely made it into the air before coming down and crashing into a plane that was parked on the tarmac. The man, who had been visiting a flight school at the airport, described watching the chopper lift off only a short distance away before it dropped and smashed into pieces on the ground in a matter of seconds.
The FAA confirmed that four people were on board the helicopter at the time of the crash. Pembroke Pines police said on social media that all four were taken to hospital, and video obtained from the scene showed paramedics unloading two children on stretchers, wearing neck braces, at a nearby hospital as the response unfolded.
Footage from the airport captured the extent of the wreckage, showing the helicopter on the ground, crumpled on its side and wedged in between two other aircraft that had been parked on the tarmac. The images conveyed how little room there had been as the helicopter came down in an area dotted with other planes.
The Federal Aviation Administration is leading the investigation into the crash and the circumstances that caused the helicopter to go down so soon after lifting off. Authorities had not released further details on the conditions of those taken to hospital or on the precise cause of the accident as the inquiry continued at the airport.
The accident is the second involving an aircraft at North Perry Airport in the span of just two weeks. The previous crash saw a small plane go down just west of North Perry, near South Florida State Hospital, a sequence of incidents that has placed renewed scrutiny on operations at the busy general aviation airfield.