Breaking: Military Helicopter Down near Huntsville, AL....no survivors reported

[Bill]

Twitter

security cam video showing helicopter crashing. Looks like it lost power to both rotors.

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[Louie Detroit]

RIP to all personnel involved.

[Grey Ghost]

Haven't seen anything or heard about it on the mainstream.

Most choppers can auto-rotate and pilots are trained to perform it.

Must have been a catastrophic mechanical failure.

[Bill]

Video with sound, if that helps any of our helicopter folks understand what happened

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[cptlo306]

[JRD77VET]

[Norm]

[Vette40th]

RIP. Nobody deserves to die in this way.
Condolences to the family

[LisaJohn]

Saw it on the local news.

[slewfoot]

Originally Posted by Grey Ghost

Haven't seen anything or heard about it on the mainstream.

Most choppers can auto-rotate and pilots are trained to perform it.

Must have been a catastrophic mechanical failure.

Appears to have a tail rotor failure.

With a basic engine failure, normal autorotation and stuff it somewhere and go home. Although possible, basic autorotation is not likely with the considerable lack of any directional control

[Louie Detroit]

Originally Posted by slewfoot

Appears to have a tail rotor failure.

With a basic engine failure, normal autorotation and stuff it somewhere and go home. Although possible, basic autorotation is not likely with the considerable lack of any directional control

All I can say is you and Grumpy must have balls the size of pickle jars flying a whirlybird. I rode in a transport copter once at ITS looking out the open rear end at the Pacific Ocean, and it scared the shit out of me.

[slewfoot]

Originally Posted by Louie Detroit

All I can say is you and Grumpy must have balls the size of pickle jars flying a whirlybird. I road in a transport copter once at ITS looking out the open rear end at the Pacific Ocean, and it scared the shit out of me.

I've had my "days."


Tail rotor is technically called an "anti torque rotor. Keeps the helicopter straight while hovering or in flight.

If it breaks, blades which normally spin one direction, fuselage starts spinning the opposite direction. The outcome is usually not good.

We do practice a stuck pedal which means you will fly off the throttle to keep you straight until you can land somewhere.

[ricks327]

It looked like it fell like a rock in the one video.

[Taurus]

Terrible loss, very sad. I always felt uncomfortable when my son had HC duty.

[Torqaholic]

Training exercise, only two on board.

Not too long ago I read about helicopter training that was causing crashes where they descend too fast into their own down draft causing a complete loss of lift. Purposely causing this condition was supposed to teach them how to recover when it happens unintentionally but to my knowledge this was determined to be an excessively dangerous risk (recovery requires a very specific set of conditions and it doesn't always work as expected, people were being needlessly killed). Pretty sure the investigation deemed this as too dangerous for required training and recommended a return to theoretical training.

Maybe not everybody got the memo? Or maybe the safety recommendation was rejected? Hard to say, I haven't followed the situation since my original read through and I am not a pilot.

[86RAG]

Originally Posted by Louie Detroit

RIP to all personnel involved.

[slewfoot]

Originally Posted by Torqaholic

Training exercise, only two on board.

Not too long ago I read about helicopter training that was causing crashes where they descend too fast into their own down draft causing a complete loss of lift. Purposely causing this condition was supposed to teach them how to recover when it happens unintentionally but to my knowledge this was determined to be an excessively dangerous risk (recovery requires a very specific set of conditions and it doesn't always work as expected, people were being needlessly killed). Pretty sure the investigation deemed this as too dangerous for required training and recommended a return to theoretical training.

Maybe not everybody got the memo? Or maybe the safety recommendation was rejected? Hard to say, I haven't followed the situation since my original read through and I am not a pilot.

True, called Settling with Power where is settles/falls in it's own down wash. Done it many times but usually practiced at some serious altitude.

Brought on by low airspeed, bit of a tailwind and a high rate of descent. Separately, those three are nothing overly serious but if your in a canyon area or something combining them, it can get messy.

I would get a few thousand feet up, slow down and lower the pitch, as the rate of descent increase, then pull in the pitch and you can feel it sucking you down.

To get out of it, just do a simple pedal turn along with direction and fly out of it. Military trains regularly on most common emergencies and "to the ground. Recognizing the problem instantly, civilian side does not because it costs money out of their own pockets.

Military's constant training is paid for by taxpayers.

Who knows what happened with those two guys

What I find odd is no crew-chief on board?

[Loco Vette]

Originally Posted by Torqaholic

Not too long ago I read about helicopter training that was causing crashes where they descend too fast into their own down draft causing a complete loss of lift.

This phenomenon caused a helicopter crash into Fort Loudon Lake a few years ago, about a mile and a half from my house. I was home at the time, the copter went low enough that it shook the house.

Clayton at fault in fatal helicopter crash