London to Jersey racecourse helicopter flights removed from internet

A helicopter company has been told to remove an advert selling chartered flights from London to Jersey's Les Landes racecourse as they would breach aviation rules.

This comes despite the Director of Civil Aviation Jersey granting a helicopter pilot special permission to fly from Ascot to the racecourse for the race meeting on July 8.

ITV Channel contacted the Acting Director of the Civil Aviation in Jersey, Inez Bartolo about the flight and was initially told 'no flight' had taken place.

However, a short time later after ITV said the flight had been seen landing at Les Landes she stated she had granted a one-time exemption for the flight, which she was "able to do under the Air Navigation (Jersey) Law 2014".

Not long after the flight took place, Atlas Helicopters began to advertise commercial flights from London to the racecourse, despite it being illegal to do so.

But after authorities were alerted, the company quickly took down their advert.

Ms Bartolo said: "Atlas Helicopters Ltd were advertising flights into Les Landes racecourse, I telephoned the organisation to establish the facts behind the webpage advert.

"It transpired very quickly that Atlas Helicopters Commercial Team had used Les Landes as an opportunity to try and gather business, not recognising such flights were not permissible as Les Landes is not a licensed aerodrome.

"They were extremely apologetic and removed the webpage within five minutes of my call."