GoPro Camera Catches Mid-Air Collision Between Helicopter and Plane over Alps

When they do occur, the consequences are dramatic for those involved. Just at the end of July, two Eurofighter jets operated by the German air slammed into each other over Germany, injuring one of the pilots and killing the other.

Back in January, a plane and a helicopter, both flying over the Italian Alps with tourists on board, crashed into each other at an altitude of 3,000 meters (9,800 ft). Seven people were killed in the incident.

This week, footage of this crash captured by one of the tourists surfaced. The local rescue police in the Aosta Valley made it public, saying the video was recorded on two GoPro cameras that somehow managed to survive and were buried in the snow until recently.

The footage is shot from inside the helicopter, and it shows the aircraft as it flies over the Rutor glacier. The footage ends abruptly with shaky images showing debris flying all over the place and getting mixed up with the tourists’ gear.

At normal speed, it’s impossible to tell what happened. When slowed down, the images show how the plane came from the left side, hitting the helicopter right in the rotor.

"The plane's undercarriage smashed into the main rotor of the helicopter," police rescue chief Delfino Viglione was quoted as saying by Euronews.

The seven people killed in the accident were four Germans, one Belgian, one Italian and one French.

Historically, the worst mid-air collision took place in 1996, when a Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747 smashed into a Kazakhstan Airlines Ilyushin Il-76 over the village of Charkhi Dadri in India. 349 people on board both planes died.