10:35am | A routine exercise turned extremely dangerous yesterday when a Sheriff’s Department helicopter began leaking fuel and was forced to unload fuel onto the ground below as pilots made an emergency landing at the Long Beach Poly High School baseball field.
An Air-5 Rescue Sikorsky helicopter was conducting routine maintenance checks over the Pacific Ocean around 12:40pm on Thursday when one of its two engines failed and pilots headed back to the Long Beach Airport. They soon noticed, however, that the aircraft was losing significant oil and they would need to make an emergency landing. According to a press release from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department:
“In order to land safely, it was necessary, under emergency procedures, to off load some fuel to lighten the aircraft over downtown Long Beach from an altitude of about 1,000 feet.”
Offloading some fuel allowed the pilots to steer the helicopter to a safe location, but it did dump fuel over a naval shipyard, loading docks and residential areas of Long Beach while en route to Poly.
No one was injured, but the Press-Telegram reported today that one person near the Golden Shore RV Park was struck by the fuel. The Long Beach Fire Department said that several calls complained of an unknown liquid falling from the sky.