Copter Loses Power, Lands in Northridge

A pilot whose helicopter lost power over Northridge Sunday managed to land in a vacant field without causing any injuries or heavily damaging his aircraft.

Jerry Glass, 29, of Canyon Country said his helicopter’s engine failed shortly after noon, about five minutes after he took off from Van Nuys Airport. Glass said he radioed the airport tower that he was in trouble, then looked around for a clearing in which to set the helicopter down.

‘Very Lucky’

He was “very lucky” that the field at Lassen Street and Amestoy Avenue was almost directly beneath him, he said.

“If the clearing had not been there, I would have had to try to land on a street,” Glass said. In that event, he said, the aircraft might have struck a motorist or someone on the ground.

Glass, an agriculture pilot, calmly inspected the helicopter, a Jet Ranger, after his emergency landing. There was little visible damage.

“I know what happened,” he said. “I lost the belts in the engine.”

Glass and Joe Perry, also of Canyon Country, who was piloting a second helicopter, left the airport together on a flight to Agua Dulce. Perry, a flight instructor who landed behind his friend’s crippled aircraft, said they were flying in formation when the accident occurred.

“We were flying very low, about 700 feet above the ground because of the low visibility,” Perry said. “We had to have special clearance to fly that low.”

He called Glass’s forced landing a “controlled crash.”

Perry said a helicopter that loses power falls almost directly to the ground. He said the pilot is forced to land on automatic rotor and that he has very little control over the disabled aircraft.

“It looks like the helicopter is falling straight down right out of the sky,” Perry said.