A helicopter being used to film a test run of an experimental, self-driving car on Pikes Peak crashed Friday near the mountain’s summit, injuring the helicopter pilot and film crew.
Steve Sperry, spokesman for El Paso County Search and Rescue, said the helicopter crashed about 7:30 a.m. at an elevation of 13,800 feet, at an area where the Pikes Peak Cog Railroad and the Pikes Peak highway are within yards of each other.
Terri Reishus, a spokeswoman for Memorial Hospital in Colorado Springs, said that the pilot, Jim Dirker, and the three other occupants of the copter were released from the hospital Friday afternoon.
Dirker 64, is the president of Englewood-based AirCam National Helicopter Services. He formerly flew for 9News in Denver.
The helicopter is a Eurocopter AS355F1 built in 1982 by the French aerospace firm Aerospatiale, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The helicopter is registered to JBD Enterprises in Eugene, Ore.
Jeremiah Gallagher, a Pikes Peak ranger, said those aboard the helicopter were members of a crew that were going to film a self-driving Audi car test — a joint project of Audi, Stanford University and the Electronic Research Laboratory in Palo Alto, Calif.
Audi spokesman Brad Stertz said the helicopter was trailing the experimental car and was flying near the summit when it crashed.
Stertz said said all research activities on Pikes Peak have been suspended and the project will continue at a later date.
The driverless car combines artificial intelligence and numerous sensors that researchers hope will eventually be used to make driving safer, said Stanford University spokesman Dan Stober.
Audi said the goal of the project involves ascending Pikes Peak automatically without a driver behind the wheel “to demonstrate the capabilities of advanced driver-assistance systems and GPS.”
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
