Helicopter incident at St. Francois County Fair Saturday – Daily Journal Online

By Darrell Cureton

The helicopter incident destroyed tents and inventory, but only one person was injured. Photo by Darrell Cureton

By 11am, the traders’ stalls were busy setting up for a normal day of sales; most had already been set up the evening before.

Between noon and 12:15 p.m., an Air Methods rescue helicopter flew three times over an open-air market, attempting to land approximately 60 feet above a group of no fewer than 25 vendors setting up tents selling thousands of dollars’ worth of goods.

Meanwhile, the Park Hills Fire Department stood there attempting to land the helicopter in a rapid landing zone unsuitable for the equipment they were attempting to land in a non-emergency situation. The FAA requires that a helicopter in a non-emergency situation should land in an area at least three rotor lengths wide, one on each side of the helicopter upon landing.

The helicopter hovered and then exited the rotor winds, which can easily reach over 110 km/h, blowing over a third of the traders’ tents, destroying at least ten tents and an unknown amount of inventory.

Immediately after the incident, the fire department assessed the injured.

At this point, there was only one injury. The fair board members who were present came and started helping people clean up and making a list of the lost tents. I asked questions – who decided to land the helicopter, where were they going to land? A fair board member explained that they had told the Park Hills Fire Department that they were going to set up the landing zone in the parking lot. Immediately after the incident, it was noticed that the fire department had disappeared.

There was not a single person there whose life was in danger because the helicopter had to land there at that moment. The exhibition management is making a great effort to make everything as good as possible. I am sure there will be fingers pointed at others. All I can say is that there should be corrective training or training of local firefighters in setting up appropriate safe landing zones for helicopters.

Photo by Darrell Cureton