Our
Collection of Helicopter Crash
pics and Videos
|
News_Chopper_in_New_York_1
News_Chopper_in_New_York_2
These
are of a News chopper that went down over New York City in the
latter part of 2004. I never heard the final outcome of the
cause of the crash but at the time it was thought to be a loss of
tail rotor control. The first one is a short out take version and the
3nd one is the whole news cast about it. |
|
Navy_Chopper
This is
one of a Navy Helicopter coming in for a landing on an aircraft carrier |
A
Bigin!
This
is one thats said to have gotten into settling with power at an airshow
Heres one that
will make you laugh and cry at the same time lol
How_Not_to_tow_a_Boat
|
A
Schweitzer 300C "I think" |
Houston we
have a problem!
I bet
these folks thought they had it going on when they landed this ship
in this precarious spot. I'm guessing here but I'd say when
they disembarked the ship it changed the CG and over it went.
News Articles
Updated:
10:46 AM EDT
Military
Confronts Reckless Air Crashes
Pentagon
Strives for Balance in Training Pilots
By TED
BRIDIS, AP
WASHINGTON
(May 9) - A deadly aircraft accident in Afghanistan last summer is
one of a series of exasperating crashes in the military that was
blamed on recklessness, not enemy gunfire or faulty equipment, The
Associated Press found.
A
thrilling dive on this Black Hawk chopper in Afghanistan turned into
a crash that killed a crew chief and destroyed the $6 million craft.
Events that
led to the crash unfolded as 11 Marines packed into an Army Black
Hawk helicopter in eastern Afghanistan asked for an exciting flight
on an otherwise dull mission, demonstrating for visiting dignitaries
how troops are sped into battle.
''Fly hard,''
the Marines asked. The cockpit responded, ''You asked for it.''
Climbing and
swooping, the Black Hawk pilot crested a 400-foot hill then
deliberately nosed into a dive so steep and abrupt that everyone
inside felt weightless. A wheel chock rose off the floor like a
magician's prop and flew forward into the cockpit, jamming the controls.
In the
horrific, tumbling crash that followed, a crew chief in the doorway
died. Everyone else was injured. The $6 million helicopter was destroyed.
''Top
Gun''-style flying, personified by Tom Cruise as a brash Navy pilot
in Hollywood's 1986 film, presents the Pentagon with a dilemma: How
to breed aggressive aviators in high-performance jets and helicopters
capable of extraordinary maneuvers without endangering crews,
passengers and aircraft.
The pilot in
Afghanistan, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Darrin Raymond Rogers, 37, of
Mililani, Hawaii, pleaded guilty last week at his court-martial to
charges of negligent homicide, reckless endangerment, property
destruction and failure to obey orders.
''I'm not a
bad person,'' Rogers told the judge. He acknowledged that he was
''trying to impress the guys in the back.'' Rogers was sentenced to
120 days without pay at Fort Leavenworth military prison in Kansas.
He also must retire from the Army, but will retain his pension.
''There's a
difference between aggressiveness and recklessness,'' said Richard A.
Cody, a four-star general who holds the Army's No. 2 job. ''We want
them to be aggressive but also disciplined, so they don't get
themselves in an envelope they can't get out of.''
Some pilots
bristle over challenges to how they fly, says a retired Marine Corps judge.
''Hot-dogging
is not necessarily negligent,'' says Patrick McLain of Dallas, who
presided at courts-martial. ''You need a person who's bold and daring
and courageous. It rubs against the grain to have this sort of
nitpicking oversight. A very small minority would be in favor of
scrupulous adherence to the voluminous rules about flying.''
A retired
Marine fighter pilot, Kris Elliott of New Orleans, said: ''Anybody
who says they haven't hot-dogged as a pilot probably isn't being truthful.''
In one case, a
Naval Reserve pilot, Cmdr. Kevin Thomas Hagenstad of Marietta, Ga.,
ejected and survived a crash in rural Tennessee last year that
investigators attributed to flying so low that his $40 million
fighter jet struck power lines three miles from the Watts Bar nuclear plant.
Hagenstad, who
broke his ankle, said he was ''not at liberty to discuss this.''
The Navy's top
safety commander, Rear Admiral Dick Brooks, cited ''blatant'' rules
violations by Hagenstad.
Reckless
accidents, which happen every year, frustrate senior military
commanders because these typically occur during training flights and
are considered easily avoidable. Air Force crews are encouraged to
announce, ''Knock it off,'' when a pilot begins to fly unsafely.
''There will
be repercussions,'' the head of Army aviation, Brigadier General E.J.
Sinclair, said in an interview with the AP. ''If someone goes out
there and does that and it's observed, I usually hear about it from
another pilot.''
At the same
time, Sinclair said, the Army is rewriting rules to specify which
maneuvers are allowed and teaching pilots aggressive new aerial
techniques that push helicopters closer to their engineering design limits.
''We make it
very clear, this is not something you go out and do on your own,''
Sinclair said.
For training,
the Army uses a dramatic cockpit video from the crash of an Apache
attack helicopter at Fort Campbell, Ky. It shows the co-pilot
yelling, ''Yeehaw!'' during one maneuver banned as unsafe by the Army.
The tape also
shows the pilot and co-pilot debating whether they can fly safely
between tall trees while traveling nearly 90 miles per hour at 16
feet above ground.
''Think I can
make it in between there?'' the pilot asks.
''Nope,'' the
co-pilot answers.
''Oh, ye of
little faith. Look how big that is,'' the pilot says.
Seconds later,
the Apache's rotors struck a huge limb, shattering one blade as the
pilot struggled to land safely. ''C'mon, get it under control,
Mark!'' the co-pilot shouts. Both crew survived. The 1997 accident
caused $1 million in damage.
Marine Lt.
Gen. Mike Hough complained last summer in a memorandum to his
aviation commanders: ''We are killing more aircrew in training
mishaps than during combat missions. ... I will not tolerate the
blatant violations and lack of leadership I am seeing from our aviators.''
Hough's tough
message came weeks before a Hornet fighter crash in Quantico, Va.,
that the Navy blamed on ''unacceptable'' flying.
But serious
criminal charges such as those against Rogers are unusual.
Prosecuting pilots in public deeply divides military aviators, who
more commonly face quiet administrative proceedings that include
warnings and temporary grounding.
''As long as
they don't embarrass the government or hurt anybody, they'll
typically be counseled and that will be the end of it,'' said law
professor Michael Noone at Catholic University. The retired Air Force
colonel has prosecuted and defended pilots in crash investigations.
Investigators
said the helicopter pilot who was court-martialed rejected an earlier
request by Marines for acrobatics during the flight. But he agreed to
a second request and radioed, ''Taking room to maneuver,'' after a
demonstration for Marine Gen. James L. Jones, the supreme allied
commander for Europe and commander of the U.S. European Command, was
delayed 10 minutes, according to an Army report. Crew chief Daniel
Lee Galvan, 30, died in the crash.
Rogers, a
veteran pilot with a reputation in the 25th Infantry Division as an
able flier, would not talk about the accident when the AP contacted
him at home in Hawaii. He said his lawyer also would not comment.
Other Army
pilots said such requests for acrobatics are common from passengers.
''I've been
asked that; I always felt like I had to enforce the rules,'' said
Herb Rodriguez of Clarksville, Tenn., a retired Black Hawk pilot who
won the Distinguished Flying Cross for heroism in the Somalia
deployment in 1993. ''I was like a parent.''
On a memorial
Web site dedicated to her husband, the widow of Daniel Lee Galvan
described her young children's grief and lying atop her husband's
grave. She said she hoped Rogers ''lives with the guilt of taking my
beautiful angel away from his family.''
''I just don't
want this pilot to think he can do this again, to hurt anybody
else,'' Sonya Galvan of Lubbock, Texas, told the AP before the
court-martial in Hawaii.
''At some
point or another,'' she said, ''they need to make someone accountable.''
Associated
Press writer Jaymes Song contributed to this report from Hawaii.
05-09-05 08:05EDT
Someone sent
this to me from an article that was on AOL.com
END
