A helicopter crash-landed on a busy Florida street, killing a man in a car on the ground
- One person was killed after a helicopter crashed onto a Tampa, Florida street on Thursday.
- Officials said the pilot and co-pilot weren't injured, and the fatality was a car passenger on the ground.
- The crash was captured on surveillance videos.
A helicopter's crash landing onto a busy Tampa, Florida street was captured by surveillance cameras at nearby businesses.
The Hillsborough County sheriff's office said Thursday that neither of the two people inside the blue helicopter were injured. However, a 72-year-old passenger in a pickup truck was killed by the craft's spinning rotors as it touched down, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
"It was really close, you could hear the blades turning," one witness told the Tampa Bay Times. According to the paper, the 38-year old pilot was "highly trained" and had successfully completed other flights recently. However, the same aircraft had reported "possible mechanical problems" on March 31, when it landed safely at a nearby airport.
While helicopter accidents like the one in Tampa tend to get plenty of media traction, they are on the decline, statistics show. According to the International Helicopter Safety Foundation, worldwide accidents have fallen from 354 in 2013 to 239 in 2017.