A helicopter crashed on one of Madrid’s main thoroughfares in the morning of December 1, 2023.
The helicopter, an Enstrom 280FX Shark (registration F-HPUX), had taken part in European Rotors, a trade show for the helicopter industry that took place at the IFEMA exhibition hall nearby between November 27 and 30, 2023.
The helicopter had departed the exhibition areas at around 10am local time when, for reasons yet unknown, it lost control and crashed in the middle of the M-40 motorway next to an elevated overpass.
The two people onboard were injured, one of them managed to get out of the helicopter on his own, the other suffered a femur fracture and had to be rescued by the emergency services. The driver of a car that was hit when the helicopter impacted the ground was also lightly injured.
Several bystanders posted on social media videos of the moments shortly after the incident took place.
The six-lane motorway had to be temporarily closed to traffic, which resulted in a massive traffic jam, since it happens to be one of the main access ways to the city of Madrid.
The 280FX Shark is a light, two-seater, piston-engine helicopter. It is the latest iteration of the F-28/280FX family of helicopters, that has been manufactured since the mid-1960s by Enstrom, an independent rotorcraft maker based in Wisconsin, in the US.