{"id":128043,"date":"2026-05-07T13:02:51","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T19:02:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/private-helicopter-crashes-at-durango-la-plata-county-airport\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T21:02:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T03:02:14","slug":"private-helicopter-crashes-at-durango-la-plata-county-airport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/private-helicopter-crashes-at-durango-la-plata-county-airport\/","title":{"rendered":"Private helicopter crashes at Durango-La Plata County Airport"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=128787ad-3319-5157-b8e5-3ba8545f7917&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" srcset=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=128787ad-3319-5157-b8e5-3ba8545f7917&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=800 800w, https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=128787ad-3319-5157-b8e5-3ba8545f7917&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=1200 1200w, https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=128787ad-3319-5157-b8e5-3ba8545f7917&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=1800 1800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 2000px\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" alt=\"Blotter lights\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Blotter lights<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>Emergency workers responded Thursday to a helicopter crash at Durango-La Plata County Airport.<\/p>\n<p>The crash occurred about 12:25 p.m. off the runway but on or near a taxiway.<\/p>\n<p>The private chopper, registered to Royal Helicopter Services, crashed while conducting training take off and landing maneuvers  on the south end of the airfield, said Tony Vicari, director of aviation for the airport.<\/p>\n<p>A 61-year-old man and a 31-year-old man were in the aircraft. Both exited the aircraft safely. The 31-year-old man appeared uninjured and the 61-year-old man was complaining of back pain.<\/p>\n<p>Neither person was significantly injured in the crash, and both men were able to leave the airport and go home following the accident, Vicari said. The chopper is significantly damaged, and was returned to the owner on a trailer.<\/p>\n<p>Airport traffic was able to resume as unusual.<\/p>\n<p><em id=\"emphasis-de9a06f1c7249a1b846b73a1302ded08\"><a href=\"mailto:jbowman@durangoherald.com\">jbowman@durangoherald.com<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>men, ages 31 and 61, were inside the aircraft<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16302,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[874,1820,915,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-128043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-air-and-space-crash","tag-dh-trueanthem","tag-durango-la-plata-county-airport","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128043"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128126,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128043\/revisions\/128126"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128043"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=128043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}