Google Earth Sleuthing - Helicopter Shortly Before Crash
Google Earth Sleuthing - Helicopter Shortly Before Crash
The recent updates to the Google Earth satellite data appears to have captured a helicopter which just minutes or hours later was in a non-fatal accident in Spain that made the news. On 1-Dec-2005 the Spanish opposition leader Mariano Rajoy was slightly injured when a police helicopter departed a bullring in the town of Mostoles, Spain and crashed just outside the stadium.
Yesterday, someone browsing the new satellite data put two and two together and concluded he had found the helicopter in the bull-ring. He posted a placemark at the Google Earth Community under the pseudonym ‘USFer’. You can see the helicopter here 
. This morning, Frank McVey (an aviation and Google Earth expert) did some sleuthing and determined the photo from Digital Globe in the GE database is in fact dated 01-December-2005. This means the photo does in fact show the helicopter in the bullring which later crashed. Amazing! The moment of the helicopter crash was captured on news video, but fortunately no one was seriously hurt. Here is the CNN story on the crash.
(Via Google Earth Blog.)
