Elk downs chopper

An elk leaped into a research helicopter that was trying to capture it and brought down the helicopter in a collision that also killed the elk, authorities said yesterday. The elk jumped into the chopper’s tail rotor as the aircraft flew about three metres above ground in a mountainous part of eastern Utah, with its crew trying to drop a net on the elk, said Jared Rigby, of the Wasatch County Sheriff’s Office. The two people on board weren’t seriously hurt. The state-contracted Texas-based crew was trying to capture and sedate the elk and give it a tracking collar to research its movements in the area about 145 kilometres east of Salt Lake City.