Pilot error led to helicopter’s car park crash

A HELICOPTER which crashed and exploded into flames in a busy seaside town was too big for the car park the pilot was trying to “squeeze it into,” a district court judge was told yesterday.

The pilot, William Curry, admitted it was “an error of poor judgment,” in deciding to land the Sikorsky S76B in the car park of the Neptune Hotel, in Bettystown, Co Meath, on September 18, 2008.

Judge Flann Brennan said it was “a miracle he survived this incident and that nobody else was killed or injured.”