An NYPD detective fractured his leg after he fell while rappelling from a helicopter during a training exercise at the department’s police academy in Queens.
By Thomas Tracy, Rocco Parascandola, Elizabeth Keogh Source New York Daily News
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
An NYPD detective fell from a hovering helicopter and fractured his leg during a training exercise at the department’s police academy in Queens on Thursday, sources said.
The Emergency Services Unit detective was supposed to rappel down from the chopper at the sprawling College Point training facility around 12:15 p.m., police sources said.
A thick, black rope was dropped onto a grassy field and the detective — who joined the department in 2005 — grabbed hold of it, ready to descend, video viewed by the Daily News shows.
Somehow, the rope came free from the helicopter. The detective fell to the ground with the rope still in hand.
Nearby officers ran to the injured detective’s aid as he laid in the grass. The helicopter touched down moments later, the video shows.
A police source told the Daily News either the rope was not properly rigged or “the rope attachment point could have failed.”
The person in charge of rappelling operations overseeing the exercise was new to the position, the source added.
The injured detective was airlifted to Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx to be treated for the fracture.
It was the second time in less than a year that an NYPD officer has been injured in an incident involving a police helicopter.
The co-pilot of an NYPD chopper suffered injuries severe enough to put him on restricted duty when the pilot, Officer Brian Worthington, mishandled the chopper’s controls causing a hard landing at the Wall Street Heliport, a National Transportation Safety Board probe found.
Worthington said that when the eight-year-old Bell 429 chopper slammed to the helipad on Dec. 13, 2021, he was trying to avoid people and an aircraft nearby.