Yeah a helicopter sounds fishy, I think the turbines probably overheated and caught on fire due to poor maintenance. Which may surge lines and blow them out before it fully fails.
Solar is great but its hard to capture the un-used power it and keep it in storage. Batteries are not very efficient and its probably why solar has not caught on for large scale uses. Many small projects its fine for but when you deal with cities the amount of batteries you would need would be impossible.