basicgemini1982

I got the 'inside' on this. The pilot was a 16 year veteran with AeroMed. He was not training. Every certain amount of years, the F.A.A. has to do inspections on the helicoptors. This was an inspection flight. There is a lot of construction in downtown Grand Rapids and the pilots can not fly straight in because of a crane that is near. They must go over the crane and come straight down from that position. Apparently when he was landing, the tail rotor clipped the radio antenna and when the coptor began to spin, the pilot purposely dived toward the roof to avoid landing in the street and killing other people, in turn causing the explosion. The pilot is in stable condition at this time, with a few tubes going into his body and I'm not sure about the F.A.A. member except I know he's alive and well.

Just to add to this. All video on this story is available at: http://video.woodtv.com/

There is a live press conference happening right now that you can watch at http://www.woodtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=8395273 This may be over soon, but still interesting