Jaw-dropping video footage shows the moment a cop missed death by inches after two police helicopters collided.

The accident, which happened at Pasadena Police Department in California, sees one of the two identical choppers return to its landing spot shortly after taking off.

Its planned trip to provide traffic support for a college football game was cancelled due to bad weather, forcing it to return to base, reports the Metro.

But when it came back in to land the chopper’s pilot said she did not receive a response to her request to touch down on her planned landing pad.

That meant she did not realize the stationary helicopter’s engines had been started, and that its engine was running.

When she came in to land, the moving rotor caught hers and sparked a violent collision that saw the fuselage of the parked copter totally shattered by the spinning blade.

Two people were on board the stationary helicopter managed to escape serious injury in the collision.

An aircraft assistance officer standing by the aircraft was hurled to the ground by the force of the impact, but miraculously escaped being injured by any of the flying debris.

The accident happened in 2012, but a National Transportation Safety Bureau investigation published its final report Monday, and released the video for the first time.

It ruled the cause of the airport was ‘The landing pilot’s failure to maintain clearance from a parked helicopter and the other pilot’s failure to park the helicopter inside of a marked parking pad.’

Two pilots and a third person on board the moving copter were also taken to hospital, where they were treated for minor injuries.