A male pilot is dead after a small privately-owned helicopter “nosedived” from the sky and crashed in a rural field near Brampton, Ont.

Police were called to the crash site at 8 p.m. just off Heritage Road, south of Embleton Road, near the Lionhead Golf and Country Club. It's a rural area just southwest of Brampton.

“It was residents who actually saw the helicopter go down,” that prompted the 911 calls, Peel Police Constable Jodi Dawson said.

Const. Dawson said the pilot was alone in the helicopter and died in the crash. The flight originated at the Toronto Island Airport.

Witness Jim Ferri, who owns the apple orchard where the helicopter went down, told CP24 it fell from the sky.