Helicopter crash: Weather central to inquiry in London air accident (VIDEO AND GALLERY)

Jan 16 2013 By Cheryl Mullin

WEATHER conditions will be central to the inquiry into today’s helicopter crash by accident investigators.

The key question that the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) team will want an answer to is: “Was visibility suitable for a helicopter flight over London?”

Battersea Heliport in south London has said that the pilot of the helicopter had requested to divert and land there due to bad weather.

Earlier, it is thought that the pilot had had to abandon his plan to land at Elstree in Hertfordshire due to fog.

The AAIB will check with weather forecasters and find that cloud in central London was low at the time of the accident.

The investigators will also want to find out what conditions were like at Redhill in Surrey from where the helicopter is thought to have taken off.

Forecasters at MeteoGroup, the weather division of the Press Association, said there were very misty conditions over south east England this morning, with some dense fog in places.

It added that areas around London and to the north of the capital were shrouded in low cloud, down as low as 200ft, and areas of freezing fog.

Weather stations at Stansted in Essex, Luton in Bedfordshire and High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire all reported foggy conditions this morning.