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As the early crowd began to show up at bars in Hollywood last night, a few blocks away at Highland and Sunset at Hollywood High School one of the 17 or so LAPD Airships was making an emergency landing on the football field due to mechanical problems around 9:40 p.m. It landed safely and no injuries were reported according to Cecil Manresa, Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman. The LAPD reports that the helicopter is still there as mechanics work on it. Once fixed, it will take off.
Nearly seven hours later at the Highland-Sunset intersection, a three car collision involving four patients killed one. The Los Angeles Fire Department reports a fourth car was missing from the scene.
Officials said the accident might have occurred when a 24-year-old man driving south on Highland slammed into a vehicle on Sunset, killing the driver and critically injuring a male passenger, who was pulled from the vehicle by bystanders. The passenger suffered burns over 50% of his body, said Cecil Manresa, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County [sic] Fire Department. The 24-year-old driver, who is suspected of driving under the influence of alcohol, may have been racing the driver of the missing fourth car along Highland, officials said. He suffered neck and back injuries. A 25-year-old woman in a third car suffered minor abrasions when her air bag deployed, Manresa said. [LA Times]
Photo of an unrelated crash by upeslases via Flickr