Death toll rises in Scottish helicopter-pub crash
LONDON - Scottish officials on Sunday pulled a ninth body from the rubble of a Glasgow pub demolished when a helicopter plunged to earth.
Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond told the BBC on Sunday that of the 12 people still hospitalized, three are in intensive care but they are in stable condition.
The helicopter crashed into The Clutha club in Glasgow on Friday during a concert.
Emergency officials were still searching the crash site for bodies while working to remove the aircraft's wreckage.
"This is a painstaking process which we expect to take some time," said Deputy Chief Constable Rose Fitzpatrick. "Until we remove the helicopter we cannot be sure what we will find."
Investigators also are looking into what could have caused the helicopter to go down.
Officials said Sunday the aircraft was on a police operation and returning to Glasgow when it crashed, but declined to provide more details.
The crash Friday at around 10:30 p.m. sent dozens of patrons fleeing through a cloud of dust. Witnesses spoke of people streaming out of the building covered in blood, with gashes and other injuries.
Willam Byrne said he was lucky to be on the other side of the pub when the ceiling came down.
“There was a huge bang and there was a couple of seconds of almost stillness after this bang and then the whole other side of the pub from where I was in collapsed,” he said.
Before emergency crews arrived, bystanders formed a human chain to rescue people trapped under the debris.
“There were people much deeper into the kind of the debris of the pub and trying to pass injured people out and all you did was grab the person that was given to you and pass them onto the next person so that they were in relative safety.
Ambulances rushed to the scene, taking the injured to nearby hospitals.A memorial service was held Sunday at Glasgow Cathedral. Eight candles were lit in memory of the eight people whose deaths had been confirmed at the time.
Police Scotland have identified the three people killed aboard the helicopter as pilot David Traill, 51, and police constables Kirsty Nelis, 36, and Tony Collins, 43.