Helicopter crash at Oulton Park

[lucozade]

Does anybody know what caused the crash on Sunday ?

It went right over our heads before ditching near the landing area. Luckily no fires and the pilot walked away unhurt.

Total respect for the pilot to be honest, he managed to avoid the crowd and the pond/lake nearby.

[lnt]

smoke in cockpit

[GrahamG]

The pilot reported smoke in the cockpit after a fuelling stop at Knutsford and made for the nearest available landing area.

[lnt]

snap

[RebeccaH]

He'll probably never be as lucky again. If you need to crash land having a race track rescue crew straight to you must be some comfort. Very scary though. I was stood at the top end of the pitlane watching a friend in the VW Cup race that was happening at the time when a frenzy of rescue vehicles went out, someone ran by saying their was a helicopter out and we thought they meant the medical heli had been sent striaght out so we ran hell for leather thinking there had been a big race incident. Took a while for that adrenaline to seep out of my system

[PaulSands]

There was a cargo jet on a training flight from East Midlands crash into the perimeter wall at Donington some years back..as luck would have it there was a marshalls training day in session at the time and that coupled with icy conditions saved the day

[john75]

Any idea who the passenger was only people I can think of with chopper are Jonathan Palmer and John Jakes.

[RebeccaH]

As far as I can make out from reports there was just the pilot and 1 passengar onboard and he wasn't actually coming or going from Oulton Park - he was flying from North Wales to Knutsford and was en route somewhere when smoke filled the cockpit, he contacted Manchester airport and he was forced to emergency land at the nearest landing area which happened to be the circuit.

Had to admit it hardly touched down and the rumours were around the paddock that it was Jonathan Palmer.

[instructor]

RebeccaH said:

Had to admit it hardly touched down and the rumours were around the paddock that it was Jonathan Palmer.

I wasn't there but saw a photo... the helicopter that came down was an Enstrom Shark. a petrol engined machine often used for training and a relatively cheap helicopter some private owners choose (the most popular in that class being the Robinson R22 or R44); JP's current helicopter is a much larger and more expensive gas turbine engined Aerospeciale Twin 'Squirrel' (Écureuil)

[CerbyT]

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