Four people were slightly injured when a helicopter fighting a veld fire in the Table Mountain National Park made an emergency landing on Monday, said firefighting officials.
The helicopter was one of two being used by the government-sponsored Working on Fire (WoF) programme to douse the wildfire in the park near Cape Town.
WoF spokesperson Evelyn John Holtzhausen said the Super Frelon helicopter, crewed by four WoF firefighters, made a forced landing above the reservoir at Silvermine in the park at about 10am.
”The helicopter crew of four … suffered minor burns and one has a broken ankle,” said Holtzhausen. ”They were airlifted to 2 Military Hospital in Wynberg. The helicopter was enveloped in flames.”
They are WoF aviation manager Louis Venter, Daryl Ray, Willie Durandt and Don Bacon.
Holtzhausen said he assumed the second helicopter was used to fly the crew to the hospital, about 3km or 4km away by air.
WoF uses helicopters to drop water on fires to help ground crews. Monday’s fire was believed to have been caused by a lightning strike during a storm on Sunday night. The fire was doused, thanks partly to rain.
Netcare 911 spokesperson Nick Dollman said the helicopters were collecting water for a reservoir to dump on the flames. ”After picking up a load of water, one of the helicopters appeared to lose power and dumped the water before performing an emergency crash landing.”
Dollman said Netcare paramedics attended to the injured at the scene before they were flown to hospital.
Holtzhausen said civil aviation authorities were expected on the scene on Monday to investigate the cause of the incident. — Sapa