VIDEO: Lucky escape as helicopter crashes into pub
Teddy and Betty McGoey had gone into a back function room of the Rustic Inn, Abbeyshrule, Co Longford, last night to investigate after hearing the aircraft hovering low overhead for a few minutes.
They were standing on the dancefloor when the propellers and tail of the helicopter smashed into the wooden back wall of the pub.
The impact on the newly built accommodation on the banks of the Royal Canal blasted a small window to pieces and sprayed shards of glass inside.
Mr McGoey said he was hit below the eye while his wife’s glasses were blown off her face.
The accident happened at 9.15pm on Wednesday after the helicopter with two men on board was seen hovering a few feet above the canal in an apparent attempt to land on a narrow strip of grass.
Both men, one of whom is an experienced acrobatic pilot, walked away from the mangled wreckage with only minor injuries.
CCTV footage recorded next door to the pub showed the helicopter crashed after a propeller clipped the wooden wall at the rear of the pub.
The force spun the tail of the aircraft around and it then crashed into the pub and smashed off leaving a gaping hole 10ft wide.
Gardaí have recovered CCTV footage, which is to be examined by the Air Accident Investigation Unit, which shows a third man move picnic tables at the canal bank just before the helicopter is seen hovering.
Ciarán Doyle, 14, from Aughnacliffe, Longford, was in Abbeyshrule with his father Padraic and recorded the minutes leading up to the crash.
“The impact was very fast but very noisy, it was shocking,” he said.
“It flew around at the back of the village and it went quite high but then it came down towards the canal and it started to hover very low.
“As I was taking a video for about five minutes, it hit off the Rustic Inn and flipped over on its side.
“I used the phone that I had been videoing with and phoned the emergency services.”
Locals also reported the two men on the helicopter waving to them as they hovered a few feet above the ground in the minutes before the accident.
