My name is Tony Powell, chief of
police for the city of Calhoun.
TONYPOW Pete Powell Pyle PYPL yeah.
Well I was gonna say yeah,
you're too young to remember the show,
but that's what most people say exactly.
Alright, he's saying it on reruns alright
can you just breakdown what happened here?
I think the time was approximately 450 when
we received the call that a helicopter
went down in the area of El Nopal.
That's the Mexican restaurant behind
us there, and after getting a pilot
or a statement from the pilot,
it appears that he had landed in the field,
and I'm unclear whether he had went
into the restaurant or decided
not to go into the restaurant.
But at some point came back up into
the air when he did his statement.
Because that.
Hit the wind had pushed him around the bit.
The rotor clip,
the power line and it may have been
entangled because it threw him
into the building off to our right.
Here, the rotor did clip the building itself,
and it looks like maybe.
You know,
with speculation here at this point,
they clipped the building and it
threw it back away from the building,
and that's when it hit the ground.
Four people on board. What's their status?
Four people on board.
We had one with minor injuries that
was transported to our local hospital.
There was another adult size.
The pilot he he was the one that
was transported and then there were
two kids in the. Burned as well.
I don't have an exact age on them,
but I'm guesstimating maybe 9:00 and 5:10
and six they did leave on their own accord.
You know nothing short of a
miracle they wouldn't even scratch.
But and as I said,
the pilot he was transported,
but it appears to be non
life threatening injuries so.
How ridiculous is this?
Just to to be on scene to see a
helicopter go down in Calhoun?
Well, you know it's been pretty busy
over the past week and I thought,
you know, maybe this one will be
better and then we get the call.
The next our helicopter it
actually landed or crashed.
So yeah, it's it. It's very unusual.
Well, our local airport is about
probably a mile. As the crow flies.
So yes, and and answer your question,
yes, so you know there's there's
a lot of the local folks,
and this the pilot is local that
have helicopters and planes,
and it's even the expanded where those
small Lear jets and stuff can land.
So yeah, I mean, it's not uncommon
to see the helicopters and planes.
You mentioned that it stopped it on.
Can you confirm if the pilots
connected to the restaurant?
No, I don't think there's any connection.
It's my understanding that one
of the children the helicopter,
it was their birthday and that that was,
I guess, the birthday celebration,
the helicopter ride. And as I said,
they were either going to eat and did
or decided not to at that location.
And then they had.
They had literally landed
and then was going back up.
And this was when this happened.
But no, there,
there's no connection to the restaurant
or or any of the businesses around here.
Yeah, they're still here.
What are what are you guys doing?
What's the timetable look like for you?
The rest of the night?
Well, right now we are on hold.
We're waiting on the FAA.
I'm standing there coming out of Dallas,
GA, so we're hoping they
arrive here pretty soon.
My investigators will connect with them,
and of course they'll take point
and we will investigate this crash
fire department is on the scene,
you know, obviously,
for safety reasons.
Gotcha. Do you believe that it will
be removed tonight or it'll just all
depend on the investigation with the
it's gonna really depend on the FAA.
I am assuming that where there you know
I don't want to say a minor because
there is no minor aviation crash.
But you know, under the circumstances
there was no explosion,
no deaths, etcetera etcetera.
So I would assume this would be a
relatively simple investigation
for them and so yeah, I would say
hopefully within the next maybe.
5678 hours at least.
We'll probably be able to
remove the plane now again,
that's that's a bit being a
bit of something on my part.
But that's not even work.
Yeah, yeah, I heard that maybe some people
inside the restaurant or nearby businesses.
You know when they heard it when they saw it,
they rushed out and and maybe
initially before first responders
were able to get here.
They may have done a little bit
of the work getting people out
or putting out initial flames.
Have you heard anything?
No, no. I haven't heard anything on that.
You know there were people in the restaurant.
And of course there were people in the
business here at that time of day.
And yeah, obviously they came
out to see what's going on.
I I, I can't say.
They did or did not help anyone
out of the helicopter at this
point, because when you guys got here
all four people they were still here.
That's correct, and moving around
on their own. Like I said,
the the pilot complained of some
injuries and and was transported,
but everyone else was was fine
and left on their own accord so.
Anything like this or how
do you handle that? Yeah,
you know what?
Like I said that will be up to the FAA.
You know we will help them with
this investigation, but they will.
Again, like I said, they'll spearhead it.
And that will be entirely up to them.
You know, I can't say at this point,
even age range of the adults.
Two men, two boys, right and then
I don't have an age range there.
There was two men,
one female and one male child.
OK.
Do you have any questions?
Any any learn anything else?
Anything? I think
we're good I I don't know if you
this is even more the mentioning,
but it did knock out the power in the area.
As I said, they did clip a power
line and but our local city power
company has the power back up
and running and as you see the
restaurant behind you is back open so.
Almost like it didn't happen.
I mean, despite there being
for the most part for the
average person just driving by,
they probably have no idea
what's going on here. So yes,
have you seen surveillance video?
Do any businesses?
Did they capture what happened?
Were you guys were
we were checking into that it it is
my understanding that someone may
have captured this on their cell
phone just videoing the helicopter
itself taking off out of curiosity.
And we haven't confirmed that yet,
but hope to do so at some point here.
We would also like to see that.