A helicopter crashed into a radio tower in Houston on Sunday night, killing a child and others onboard, officials said.
The Houston Fire Department said the accident happened in the city’s Greater East End neighborhood at 7:54 p.m. Videos circulating on social media appeared to show the aftermath.
Four people were aboard the helicopter when “it either struck a cable” coming from the tower or “actually struck the tower,” J. Noe Diaz, the chief of police of the city of Houston, said at a news conference. There were no casualties on the ground, he said.
It was not immediately clear if all four people aboard the helicopter, a private aircraft, had died. Officials said they did not know the age of the child.
After the radio tower collapsed, a fire the size of two to three blocks ignited in a grass field, fire officials said. The radio tower was the only structure on the ground that was impacted by the crash, officials said.
The families of the deceased had not been notified, Chief Diaz said.
The flight plan of the helicopter, an R44, was not known, he added.
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