Seattle TV station's news helicopter crashes near Space Needle

Two people were killed when a Seattle TV station’s news helicopter crashed near the city’s landmark Space Needle on Tuesday, setting cars ablaze in the street, the station and other local media said.

A third person was rushed to a nearby hospital and was listed in critical condition, the reports said.

TV station KOMO confirmed the crash of its helicopter, which hit two cars, and leaking fuel reportedly caught fire up to a block away. A man was seen running from one of the cars with his shirt sleeves burning. The station said the man was taken to a hospital with burns covering more than 50 percent of his body.

The Seattle Fire Department was able to put out the blaze within about 30 minutes.

It is believed that the two people killed had been inside the helicopter. The cause of the crash was not immediately clear.

"It looked like the helicopter was trying to take off, and it just was trying to stabilize and it looked odd ... and it just took a nose dive right down there on the street," one witness told KOMO.

"It looked like it got hung up on some cables, and before you know it – boom! – it dropped to the street," said another witness, identified as Brian Cruz.

Investigators from the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board arrived at the scene a few hours after the crash.

The wreckage left the chopper unrecognizable. Only the tail of the aircraft could be distinguished from the burned metal, KOMO reported.

Al Jazeera