Man, we take our youngest to yoga, and this happens in our neighborhood! No wonder we hate yoga!
Here's the first-person scoop from Chris "The Skywatcher" Considine:
At 4:15 this afternoon the Sheriff's rescue helicopter set down in quick fashion on the playing field of Eliot Jr High.. The copter was on a return to its Mt Wilson station after a presumed rescue mission that took it to Huntington Hospital just about 1/2 before this.
As the helicopter was heading back up to the mountain, it suddenly started to lose elevation and made a hard starboard turn at Mendocino and Hill. I was in a car on Mendocino and it kept losing elevation and turning in a full circle back towards Lake Ave.
As it looked, I thought it was going to land on my street, Sonoma Dr, but continued over Mar Vista and headed to Eliot. It then landed and attracted a large group of people and a huge cloud of dust.
A crewmember got out, and stood in front of the helicopter and signaled it to shut down and it did just that. The rotors came to a stop for about 8 minutes. Then they reboarded and started up the engines and took off and once again headed to Mt. Wilson.
As a conjecture, I can only surmise that perhaps a warning light or some other technical glitch forced them to land and check it out. It seems that it was minor, and they took off.
Quite an exciting afternoon here in Altadena once again, as yesterday this same crew was called into Eaton Canyon for the tragic removal of a hiker's body, the story seen on the front page of the Star News this morning.
Jamie Bissner also reports to us:
Air 5 with the L. A. County Sheriff's Department dropped two hikers off
on the field at Eliot about 20 minutes ago (roughly 4:10 -- ed.). The hikers were picked up
by two members of the Altadena Mountain Search and Rescue Team and
taken away in a pick up. The hikers were not in custody and appeared to
have no injuries.
Just checked with sheriff's station, and they confirm that there was a landing at Eliot after a search and rescue, but can't confirm that there was a second landing. We're continuing to look into it.
Thanks to Jamie, Chris for the story and first photo, and Bo Astrup for the second photo.
UPDATE 9:30 PM: OK, only one landing, Chris said he was conjecturing too much! Rescue hikers in the mountains, fly 'em to Eliot, take off and go home. Sounds like enough excitement for one day.
