Two Deaths Reported

Two people were killed, two others hurt Tuesday when an ultralight collided with a helicopter over the British town of Welham Green, Hertfordshire.

Dennis Shorter, 69, lives just 300 yards from the crash site. "A microlight came straight over the house not at the normal height I'd expect to see one. It wasn't that high. You could actually read the letterings on the wings," he told the BBC. "I didn't see the helicopter until I heard the bang. As it's gone over I'm watching it and then I looked down at my newspaper and I heard a hell of a bang. I looked up immediately and there was this microlight twisting about 10 or 12 feet below the helicopter and it came down like a dead bird that had just been shot."

The wreckage of the Robinson R-22 helicopter went down several hundred yards from where the wreckage of the ultralight came to rest.

Police cordoned off roads around the crash sites. The two people killed appeared to have been in the ultralight, but there was no immediate conformation of that.

"We are all working closely together and there is a vast number of emergency services at the scene, as well as several police surveying the area," said an unnamed spokesman for Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Ambulance Service in an interview with the BBC.

FMI: www.aaib.dft.gov.uk