Kirk here with a a Claude (AI service) translation about a helicopter accident in Aso:
—- start translation —- Around noon on the 13th, a sightseeing helicopter made an emergency landing in Aso City, leaving a total of three men and women, including the pilot and passengers, with serious and minor injuries. Although the fuselage of the helicopter that made the emergency landing remains intact, parts of the tail rotor are scattered, telling the magnitude of the impact. [TV Nishinippon reporter Kenta Sato, from the heliport] “This is above Aso City, Kumamoto Prefecture. A helicopter can be seen making an emergency landing in an open space. A white sheet has been placed over the aircraft.” Just after noon on the 13th, a call was made to the fire department reporting that “a sightseeing helicopter had an engine failure in mid-air and made an emergency landing” near the nursing home facility ‘Miyamasou’ in Kurokawa, Aso City. It is reported that there were a total of three people on board the helicopter: one man in his 50s, the pilot, and two men and women in their 30s, believed to be tourists from Hong Kong with Chinese nationality. According to the fire department, the male pilot suffered a suspected pelvic fracture and is in serious condition, while the male and female passengers complained of pain in their chests and backs and were taken to the hospital. They are conscious. According to the company operating the helicopter, the aircraft that made the emergency landing was a sightseeing helicopter heading from the nearby theme park ‘Aso Cuddly Dominion’ to the crater of Mt. Nakadake in Aso. The sightseeing helicopter took off around 11:50 a.m. and was scheduled to fly for about 7 minutes, but it made an emergency landing on a grassland 300 to 400 meters away from its intended destination. This is the footage from an information camera installed at Kusasenri just before noon on the 13th. On the right side of the screen, a helicopter can be seen heading from the direction of Mt. Eboshidake toward Mt. Nakadake and turning north. Although the footage alone cannot identify the aircraft as the one involved in the accident, it matches the scheduled time and flight route of the accident aircraft. No signs of trouble can be confirmed from the footage. [Staff of a nearby facility] “At the time, the sound of the helicopter was louder than usual. It didn’t particularly feel like it had crashed. I never thought it would crash.” According to the company operating the sightseeing helicopter, “no abnormalities were found during the pre-flight inspection.” The person in charge also stated that the cause of the emergency landing “may have been engine trouble.” —- end translation —-