A construction crew had a bit of a bad morning on Saturday when in the process of lifting a cooling unit the approximate size of a box truck, a helicopter accidentally dropped the thing about 40 feet onto a downtown Oakland Street.
This all went down around 10:15 a.m. Saturday on Clay Street near 14th Street in Oakland, and two witnesses on the scene — local graphic designer and photographer Rudi Tcruz and his brother Gabriel, a civil engineer — captured it all on video, as shown below.
Cargo helicopter on Clay Street just lost it’s cargo. Luckily it wasn’t flying over any buildings. #oakland #oaklandhelicopter #rightnowish pic.twitter.com/sjyMc6NT69
— Rudi Tcruz (@meatisburger) January 9, 2021
As the Mercury News reports, the Sikorsky Skycrane helicopter involved is capable of lifting up to 25,000 pounds, and it had been in the neighborhood lifting these new cooling units onto roofs nearby for several days.
With all the construction that's been going on in Oakland lately, the Tcruz brothers tell the Chronicle they've never seen anything like this before.
The helicopter, operated by Yuba City-based Siller Helicopter Inc., apparently left the scene on Saturday and did not return, and the incident is under investigation by the company.
While debris reportedly shot out 10 to 15 yards from the crumpled unit as it crashed, no on was apparently injured on the scene, and the damaged unit was loaded onto a flatbed truck later that afternoon. It's unclear for which building's roof the cooling unit was intended.
Closer look at the cargo that the helicopter dropped. pic.twitter.com/fXGPftPxEu
— Rudi Tcruz (@meatisburger) January 9, 2021