Police Helicopter Crashes in Atlanta: Killing 2 Officers.

Police helicopter crashes in Atlanta, killing 2 officers

Atlanta (CNN) -- It started as a helicopter search for a missing 9-year old boy. About two hours later, the police chopper lay in pieces on a city street, two officers were dead and hundreds of northwest Atlanta residents had no power.

The helicopter with two officers on board crashed late Saturday night, just miles from downtown. It was flying low to enable the officers to conduct a more thorough search, according to Atlanta Police Chief George Turner.

"I don't know specifics of what happened in that crash. We believe it is a result of the helicopter," said John Kraft, a spokesman for Georgia Power.

I read another report that clearly suggested the helicopter clipped a powerline while orbiting low in its search.

There were no injuries on the ground, but the crash knocked out power to 1,300 Georgia Power customers.

As a former medevac flight paramedic I found this story particularly of interest. Having flown over 600 missions I know the risks these officers take everyday in pursuit of public safety. Emergency service employees are still learning to take care of their own safety while taking care of the public. There have been several police officer fatalities over the past couple years where I live. We even had an EMT who was shot and killed by a patient two years ago. As a result, legislation has passed to make it a crime to assault EMTs and Paramedics, similar to a police officer. Many of the fatalities where I live could have been avoided with just a little common sense and patience unfortunately. When I flew medevacs we had a saying, I'm going home at the end of my shift.

My thoughts and prayers are with the families of these officers.

The boy was found safe.

The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating.

Police Helicopter Crashes

I saw the article earlier and it's really sad. I'm glad the little boy was found.

Some people think all cops are awful evil people but someday you'll grow up and discover that most of them are good normal people with families who love them.

I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often in metro areas. A few years ago there was a mid air collision with two news helicopters in Phoenix. It sucked four people were killed. The only good thing was that it happened over a park so nobody on the ground was injured.

reply to post by cavalryscout


Hey Scout! Thanks for chiming in.

I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often in metro areas.

I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often as well. In addition to law enforcement aviation, large metro areas can also have an abundance of news agency aircraft. Energy corporations often own helicopters to patrol their power lines and towers too. And don't forget all the medevac organizations with their aircraft flying around. Everyone competing for the same airspace. It gets very dangerous indeed.

I thought I'd post some cool pics of police helicopters as a little tribute for the deceased officers.