Two people were injured when a helicopter crashed in downtown area of Linyi City in east China's Shandong Province on Saturday, local government sources confirmed on Sunday.

The B3519 helicopter belonging to the Tianjin Tianhang General Airways crashed at the People's Square of Linyi City at about 2:40 PM due to failure of the rotor.

Two pilots aboard the ill-fated helicopter were injured. None of the people strolling on the square were hurt or killed, according to the sources with the Linyi City government.

At first, a witness said, the purple rotorcraft hovered over the eastern part of the square for a while at low altitude. Then, it crashed at the western part of the square with big roaring. Theairscrew was broken and fell scores of meters away from the crashed helicopter.

The two pilots got out of the crashed helicopter on their own. Doctors said they suffered serious injuries on the lumbar and need therapy.

(Xinhua News Agency November 14, 2005)