Helicopter crash at hospital

[Rider]

I could see the black smoke from where I work.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/05/29/mi.....ap/index.html

GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan (AP) -- Two people managed to escape a helicopter after it crashed Thursday on the roof of a Grand Rapids, Michigan, hospital, the city's fire chief said.

No patients were on board the helicopter, which crashed around 11 a.m. at Spectrum Health Butterworth Hospital in downtown Grand Rapids.

The chopper landed on its side and the two people on board got out before it caught fire, Fire Chief John VanSolkema said.

Some hospital patients were evacuated to other buildings on the Spectrum Health campus. Hospital employees were taken to Grand Rapids Community College due to fears fuel may have leaked into the hospital, police said.

Elizabeth Isham Cory, a spokeswoman for the FAA in Chicago, said two people were on board.

"We basically believe it was practicing approaches" when the helicopter crashed, she said. The FAA was investigating, Cory said.

Lynda Ignatoski, who was standing outside the Towers Medical building on the Spectrum Health campus, told The Grand Rapids Press she saw the helicopter's tail hit a radio tower on the hospital's roof.

Ignatoski said the helicopter spun around and debris flew everywhere. She said the helicopter hit the roof and exploded in flames.

Another witness, Cheryl Borgman, was watching from her office at nearby Grand Valley State University when she saw the helicopter come in from the south.

"We were standing here at the window ... and about five minutes later, we saw the black smoke," Borgman told The Associated Press. "It was just a big huge billow of black smoke."
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Spectrum Health Butterworth, in the heart of downtown Grand Rapids, is part of the largest campus of Spectrum Health, a nonprofit health care system based in western Michigan.

Butterworth Hospital is the only Level 1 trauma center in western Michigan