Rescuers continue work at Clutha Vaults bar to recover remains of eight people confirmed dead, including pilot and two police
A painstaking operation to recover the remains of at least eight people killed when a police helicopter crash-landed on a busy pub in Glasgow has continued, with a final death toll yet to emerge.
With the police still hopeful that survivors could be found, rescue workers continued the difficult task of shoring up the shattered roof of the Clutha Vaults bar.
It collapsed at 10.25pm on Friday night, trapping scores of customers, after the Eurocopter EC135 T2 suffered a catastrophic loss of power and hit the building on the banks of the Clyde.
Sir Stephen House, the chief constable of Police Scotland, confirmed the deaths on Saturday afternoon, adding that another 14 people were seriously injured in hospital.
Alex Salmond, Scotland's first minister, ordered flags to fly at half mast on government buildings to mark "a black day for Glasgow and Scotland" as accident investigators tried to establish what had caused one of the UK's worst urban aviation disasters of recent times.
As dusk fell over the scene, House disclosed that eight people had been confirmed killed, including the helicopter's civilian pilot and two police officers on board. The other five dead were killed in the bar.
Up to 120 people were thought to have been inside the single-storey bar, one of Glasgow's most famous pub music venues, where a local ska band, Esperanza, had been playing. Specialist search and rescue dogs from Trossachs mountain rescue team were brought in to search for victims and any possible survivors.
Immediately after the crash, 32 injured were taken to hospital, many of whom had been rescued by a human chain of uninjured customers and passers-by, including the local MP Jim Murphy, who had ignored the risk of an explosion or a further collapse of the building.
House said the fire brigade were working very carefully to secure the building and were still treating it as a rescue operation with possible survivors still in the building.
"This is a complex and ongoing rescue operation. It will not be a quick operation. It's a very complex and indeed dangerous scene," House said. He added: "I commend the courage of people in Glasgow, who, heedless of their own safety, took immediate action at the scene last night."
An inquiry into the cause of the crash has been launched by the Air Accident Investigation Branch and the Crown Office prosecution service. Witnesses said the helicopter, leased to police by Bond Air Services, seemed to "drop like a stone" from the sky, but aviation experts said that type was a very modern aircraft with a good safety record.
It has had significant safety alerts recently, however. Bond temporarily took the model out of service last year after the Scottish Ambulance Service reported a crack in the main rotor hub of one helicopter; the same defect was found in other EC135s, so Bond introduced daily safety checks before allowing it to resume service.
As the scale of the disaster emerged on Saturday, when Scotland had been preparing to celebrate St Andrew's day, political leaders praised the rescuers and offered condolences to the families of the dead and injured.
Glasgow council cancelled its St Andrew's day celebrations in George Square while the archbishop of Glasgow, Philip Tartaglia, held a special mass at the city's cathedral. Football matches across Scotland were briefly delayed by a minute's silence for the dead and bereaved.
Salmond said: "This is a black day for Glasgow and Scotland but it's also St Andrew's day, and it's a day we can take pride and courage in how we respond to adversity and tragedy.
"That response from our emergency services and from ordinary citizens has been exemplary. As first minister, it's a day we can take great pride in how we've responded to this extraordinary tragedy."
David Cameron, the prime minister, extended his "deepest sympathies" and told Salmond the UK government would lend any help required. "I want to thank the emergency services who worked tirelessly throughout the night and I also want to pay tribute to the bravery of the ordinary Glaswegians who rushed to help," he said.
Gordon Matheson, the leader of Glasgow city council, said the Clutha was "an absolute institution" in the city and he knew it well.
"My immediate reaction is just one of shock, actually," he said. "You just know it's going to be busy – it always is. We're at the beginning of the festive season, it's pay weekend and there's live music going on … it's just difficult to take it all in."
With the building cordoned off by a tall steel wall by Police Scotland, its roof and the aircraft's rear rotor blades shrouded by green and blue tarpaulin sheets, distraught relatives said they still had no official word whether their loved ones' bodies were in the building or had been recovered.
One relative, John McGarrigle, 38, spent much of the night and Saturday on the street near the police cordon in a personal vigil with several friends, trying to confirm that his father John Sr was among the dead.
McGarrigle, like his father a regular at the Clutha, said he was certain John Sr, a well-known poet, had been sitting with his best friend Sammy directly under the point of impact when the roof collapsed.
Another friend, Fiona, had been in the pub's toilet when the helicopter hit and came out to see the bar in ruins and McGarrigle Sr had disappeared. The operator on the police helpline, however, had been curt and unhelpful, he said.
Displaying a recent smartphone photograph of himself and his father sitting grinning at the Clutha bar to the media, McGarrigle said: "They haven't confirmed that yet, but he's a regular and it came through right at his usual spot. I just know he's dead.
"I'm devastated. I'm blinking back tears, but there's a good bit of anger, too. I'm frustrated at the lack of information and just the way I was spoken to. I want to know where my dad is – where his body is.
"He was a brilliant guy. He's a writer, he raised three kids on his own and he's a grandfather too."
William Byrne, 45, from Coatbridge, was in the bar with his brother to watch the band at the time of impact and helped to free customers by lifting up parts of the roof.
"At first I didn't know what had happened," Byrne said. "When I heard [the bang] I thought the band had blown a speaker – and the band played on for a couple of seconds but then there was just silence. It was surreally calm. People were shocked and really quiet and just in disbelief.
"The gantry of the bar and parts of the roof came down. My brother and I lifted it up because there were people trapped under [it]. Then we held the doors open while people filed out. It was only 15 minutes later when the police told us it had been a helicopter."
Edward Waltham, a retired firefighter directly involved in the city's last helicopter crash, when a Bell JetRanger used by Strathclyde police crashed into a three-storey block at Eastwood Toll during a heavy blizzard in January 1990, killing a police sergeant on board, said he had pulled out one dust-covered unconscious man with a broken leg.
Waltham said one of his close friends, Doug Naismith, another former firefighter and uncle of the Everton and Scotland striker Stephen Naismith, was among the injured at the Clutha. Naismith survived with a broken collar bone; Waltham had been late arriving to meet him there.
"It was chaotic but initially people were in a state of disbelief because there wasn't any screaming or shouting at first," he said, adding: "There was one guy lying there who was completely covered in dust. He was non-communicative and it was at this point that other people were beginning literally to be pulled out on top of us."
Meanwhile further dramatic eyewitness testimony about the disaster emerged. Murphy, the MP for Eastwood, who had been one of the first on the scene on Friday night, said he had instinctively rushed to help.
"There were people with injuries. Bad gashes to the head. Some were unconscious. I don't know how many," he said. "The helicopter was inside the pub. It's a mess. I could only get a yard or two inside. I helped carry people out. My human instinct kicked in. I didn't like what I was seeing but I did what everyone else was doing and got stuck in. I feel like I'm in shock now. It's a horrible scene." Reported by guardian.co.uk 3 hours ago.
A painstaking operation to recover the remains of at least eight people killed when a police helicopter crash-landed on a busy pub in Glasgow has continued, with a final death toll yet to emerge.
With the police still hopeful that survivors could be found, rescue workers continued the difficult task of shoring up the shattered roof of the Clutha Vaults bar.
It collapsed at 10.25pm on Friday night, trapping scores of customers, after the Eurocopter EC135 T2 suffered a catastrophic loss of power and hit the building on the banks of the Clyde.
Sir Stephen House, the chief constable of Police Scotland, confirmed the deaths on Saturday afternoon, adding that another 14 people were seriously injured in hospital.
Alex Salmond, Scotland's first minister, ordered flags to fly at half mast on government buildings to mark "a black day for Glasgow and Scotland" as accident investigators tried to establish what had caused one of the UK's worst urban aviation disasters of recent times.
As dusk fell over the scene, House disclosed that eight people had been confirmed killed, including the helicopter's civilian pilot and two police officers on board. The other five dead were killed in the bar.
Up to 120 people were thought to have been inside the single-storey bar, one of Glasgow's most famous pub music venues, where a local ska band, Esperanza, had been playing. Specialist search and rescue dogs from Trossachs mountain rescue team were brought in to search for victims and any possible survivors.
Immediately after the crash, 32 injured were taken to hospital, many of whom had been rescued by a human chain of uninjured customers and passers-by, including the local MP Jim Murphy, who had ignored the risk of an explosion or a further collapse of the building.
House said the fire brigade were working very carefully to secure the building and were still treating it as a rescue operation with possible survivors still in the building.
"This is a complex and ongoing rescue operation. It will not be a quick operation. It's a very complex and indeed dangerous scene," House said. He added: "I commend the courage of people in Glasgow, who, heedless of their own safety, took immediate action at the scene last night."
An inquiry into the cause of the crash has been launched by the Air Accident Investigation Branch and the Crown Office prosecution service. Witnesses said the helicopter, leased to police by Bond Air Services, seemed to "drop like a stone" from the sky, but aviation experts said that type was a very modern aircraft with a good safety record.
It has had significant safety alerts recently, however. Bond temporarily took the model out of service last year after the Scottish Ambulance Service reported a crack in the main rotor hub of one helicopter; the same defect was found in other EC135s, so Bond introduced daily safety checks before allowing it to resume service.
As the scale of the disaster emerged on Saturday, when Scotland had been preparing to celebrate St Andrew's day, political leaders praised the rescuers and offered condolences to the families of the dead and injured.
Glasgow council cancelled its St Andrew's day celebrations in George Square while the archbishop of Glasgow, Philip Tartaglia, held a special mass at the city's cathedral. Football matches across Scotland were briefly delayed by a minute's silence for the dead and bereaved.
Salmond said: "This is a black day for Glasgow and Scotland but it's also St Andrew's day, and it's a day we can take pride and courage in how we respond to adversity and tragedy.
"That response from our emergency services and from ordinary citizens has been exemplary. As first minister, it's a day we can take great pride in how we've responded to this extraordinary tragedy."
David Cameron, the prime minister, extended his "deepest sympathies" and told Salmond the UK government would lend any help required. "I want to thank the emergency services who worked tirelessly throughout the night and I also want to pay tribute to the bravery of the ordinary Glaswegians who rushed to help," he said.
Gordon Matheson, the leader of Glasgow city council, said the Clutha was "an absolute institution" in the city and he knew it well.
"My immediate reaction is just one of shock, actually," he said. "You just know it's going to be busy – it always is. We're at the beginning of the festive season, it's pay weekend and there's live music going on … it's just difficult to take it all in."
With the building cordoned off by a tall steel wall by Police Scotland, its roof and the aircraft's rear rotor blades shrouded by green and blue tarpaulin sheets, distraught relatives said they still had no official word whether their loved ones' bodies were in the building or had been recovered.
One relative, John McGarrigle, 38, spent much of the night and Saturday on the street near the police cordon in a personal vigil with several friends, trying to confirm that his father John Sr was among the dead.
McGarrigle, like his father a regular at the Clutha, said he was certain John Sr, a well-known poet, had been sitting with his best friend Sammy directly under the point of impact when the roof collapsed.
Another friend, Fiona, had been in the pub's toilet when the helicopter hit and came out to see the bar in ruins and McGarrigle Sr had disappeared. The operator on the police helpline, however, had been curt and unhelpful, he said.
Displaying a recent smartphone photograph of himself and his father sitting grinning at the Clutha bar to the media, McGarrigle said: "They haven't confirmed that yet, but he's a regular and it came through right at his usual spot. I just know he's dead.
"I'm devastated. I'm blinking back tears, but there's a good bit of anger, too. I'm frustrated at the lack of information and just the way I was spoken to. I want to know where my dad is – where his body is.
"He was a brilliant guy. He's a writer, he raised three kids on his own and he's a grandfather too."
William Byrne, 45, from Coatbridge, was in the bar with his brother to watch the band at the time of impact and helped to free customers by lifting up parts of the roof.
"At first I didn't know what had happened," Byrne said. "When I heard [the bang] I thought the band had blown a speaker – and the band played on for a couple of seconds but then there was just silence. It was surreally calm. People were shocked and really quiet and just in disbelief.
"The gantry of the bar and parts of the roof came down. My brother and I lifted it up because there were people trapped under [it]. Then we held the doors open while people filed out. It was only 15 minutes later when the police told us it had been a helicopter."
Edward Waltham, a retired firefighter directly involved in the city's last helicopter crash, when a Bell JetRanger used by Strathclyde police crashed into a three-storey block at Eastwood Toll during a heavy blizzard in January 1990, killing a police sergeant on board, said he had pulled out one dust-covered unconscious man with a broken leg.
Waltham said one of his close friends, Doug Naismith, another former firefighter and uncle of the Everton and Scotland striker Stephen Naismith, was among the injured at the Clutha. Naismith survived with a broken collar bone; Waltham had been late arriving to meet him there.
"It was chaotic but initially people were in a state of disbelief because there wasn't any screaming or shouting at first," he said, adding: "There was one guy lying there who was completely covered in dust. He was non-communicative and it was at this point that other people were beginning literally to be pulled out on top of us."
Meanwhile further dramatic eyewitness testimony about the disaster emerged. Murphy, the MP for Eastwood, who had been one of the first on the scene on Friday night, said he had instinctively rushed to help.
"There were people with injuries. Bad gashes to the head. Some were unconscious. I don't know how many," he said. "The helicopter was inside the pub. It's a mess. I could only get a yard or two inside. I helped carry people out. My human instinct kicked in. I didn't like what I was seeing but I did what everyone else was doing and got stuck in. I feel like I'm in shock now. It's a horrible scene." Reported by guardian.co.uk 3 hours ago.