Sunday, March 25, 2012

The Sunday Change Up - AH-64 Apache Helicopter Crash



This video of a helicopter crash in Afghanistan surfaced last week.

The clip, shows an AH-64 Army helicopter slamming into the ground after doing a
"return to target" maneuver. According to several sources the video shows a crash which occurred in Paktika province on Feb. 6, 2012.

In a statement, officials said that at the time of the incident, two helicopters were conducting overwatch for patrols picking up air-dropped supplies. One helicopter went down.

“Fortunately, no one on the ground was injured, and the members of the air crew survived,” the statement said. “U.S. Army officials are conducting an investigation into the cause of the crash.”

In the below screen grab you can see someone in the direct path of the helo, after the aircraft passes the same person is lying on the ground.



Cedar's Take: If he the guy on the ground wasn't hurt, he is damn sure lucky. That's one way to convert the non believers. As for the pilot in command, simple failure to respect the laws of flight and high altitude flight operations. Thin air and cold weather equals ground smack. Busted tail rotor equals auto rotation and uncontrolled flight and a destroyed 20 million dollar helicopter.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Holy Sh*t! That is crazy! Cedar you are correct pilot error failure to compensate for high alt operations mushed right into the ground. Common error for miltary pilots with limit amount of airtime. They are all very lucky.

Anonymous said...

That is a little intense, at first I thought he hit the building on the first pass.

I can only guess this event was preceded by the famous "Hey y'all watch this"?