A female helicopter pilot has been hailed as a hero after crash landing from 3,000ft into a busy city centre without causing any serious injuries in Hawaii.
Julia Link, 30, was piloting the light aircraft with her passenger Karl Hedburg, 71, on a photography trip when the engine suddenly cut out above the capital Honolulu.
The helicopter plummeted to the street, landing close to a large apartment complex and Hawaii's Pacific University at around 3.30pm, but miraculously no one was seriously injured.
'Everything seemed normal with the aircraft,' Miss Link told KITV. 'All of a sudden it got real quiet. Engine quit.
'First, I thought it was a joke. I was like, "Oh my God! This is for real!" Three-thousand feet is a lot of time to think about things. We practice this all the time.'
Keeping a cool head, Miss Link even managed to radio the Hawaii Fire Department to warn them over her imminent crash as the helicopter was falling from the sky.
After skidding along Fort Street in central Honolulu, the helicopter eventually hit a parked car and ended up perched in the centre of the road.
Mr Hedburg was treated for minor head injuries, but apart from that no one was seriously injured.
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| Pilot Julia Link said her training helped her keep a cool head to crash land the helicopter |
'I prayed before we went up and I figured, the Lord will take us down,' said Mr Hedberg. 'We came in, we were skidding. I felt like we were at an amusement park.'
'I'm actually kind of disappointed I ruined a brand new aircraft! The landing was nice, I have to say. I'm glad everybody walked away alive,' added Miss Link.
Firefighters said only the pilot's skills avoided a potentially fatal disaster.
'It's a pretty miraculous situation that no one was badly hurt by this,' said Captain Terry Seelig, a spokesman for the Honolulu Fire Department. 'This is a pretty busy area.'
The helicopter was operated by Mauna Loa Helicopters but representatives of the company could not immediately be reached for comment.
Preliminary information indicates the Robinson R22 Beta had an engine failure, said Allen Kenitzer, spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.
Source : dailymail
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