An air ambulance at Sky Helicopters on Sunday. (Shane MacKichan/contributed)

An air ambulance at Sky Helicopters on Sunday. (Shane MacKichan/contributed)

UPDATE: Helicopter ‘lands hard’ in mountains north of Pitt Meadows

Five people on board not injured.

  • Oct. 21, 2018 12:00 a.m.

An air ambulance, police and paramedics were at Pitt Meadows Regional Airport on Sunday after a reported helicopter crash north of the city.

Five people were aboard a helicopter that made a hard landing in the mountains north of Pitt Meadows.

The incident happened at about 1:25 p.m.

Chris Krepski, with the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, said the helicopter had some kind of control issue “and contacted terrain after that.”

He said that the helicopter, a Bell 206 L Long Ranger, is still at the scene and the amount of damage isn’t known, nor whether Transportation Safety Board personnel will visit the site.

The helicopter was on a tourism flight of the local mountains and had four passengers and a pilot.

No one suffered serious injuries.

“We don’t know the extent of the injuries,” said Krepski.

The helicopter was operated by Sky Helicopters, which is located at Pitt Meadows Regional Airport, where the air ambulance departed.

Sky evacuated the passengers with another company helicopter and took the tourists back to Pitt Meadows, where they were then taken away by ambulance.

“We’re gathering information, we’ll decide from there what to do,” Krepski said.

Abbotsford News