Thread: How to destroy an AH-64 and (possibly) your career

Originally Posted by jlvfr

Just do some mad flying...

Afghanistan helicopter crash video appears real

In his defense the Earth bounced, otherwise it would have been perfectly executed stunt.

Will he pay the bill for the helo?

On a serious note, thank God no one was injured.

If caught hotdogging, then the pilot will face court martial or something like that.

Originally Posted by Doktor

On a serious note, thank God no one was injured.

No kiding! Those main rotor blades seem to have passed no more than a meter or 2 from people on the ground!

It looks like a "Return to target" maneuver, except with a slight miscalculation on the pull up time...

Originally Posted by jlvfr

No kiding! Those main rotor blades seem to have passed no more than a meter or 2 from people on the ground!

The article says no one was injured and I was surprised considering how close the people on the ground were and how many times the helo bounced.

Those guys will never fly another army helo again. If their mission was to land, then all they had to do was land, not buzz the base to show off for the boyz, pitch up, and then stall in the thin mountain air.

I don't think they pitched up and stalled, I think they tried to pull off this maneuver but miscalculated:

Looks like he lost his tail rotor the last time he hit the ground, which would explain why it went spinning out of control at the end. They're lucky they survived the crash, people have died in helo crashes less severe than this. And, yes, that -64 is definitely totalled. I'm thinking a dishonorable discharge, at the very least.

Originally Posted by Stitch

Looks like he lost his tail rotor the last time he hit the ground, which would explain why it went spinning out of control at the end. They're lucky they survived the crash, people have died in helo crashes less severe than this. And, yes, that -64 is definitely totalled. I'm thinking a dishonorable discharge, at the very least.

We will get a nice propaganda newsline out of it instead me thinks.

"Heroic helicopter pilots shot down while providing air support to ground forces today in Afghanistan."

I would be more concerned about losing my life first.

If I'd been one of the guys on the ground, I would have killed him myself.

"We will get a nice propaganda newsline out of it instead me thinks."

Only from The Onion.

I think S2's assessment of the situation is accurate; you won't get the Army coming right out and saying, "One of our pilots was stupid, he totalled an AH-64", but you also won't get the Army saying ANYTHING about it unless absolutely necessary. Stuff happens in wartime, and 99% of it is NOT for public consumption. An Apache pilot screwed up, he made a bad call, and he will pay for it. End of story. Carry on . . . . .

Flight discipline issues (think Top Gun tower buzz) were fairly common 35 years ago. Now, they are very, very rare. It has become the mark of a professional NOT to screw around with $25 million worth of taxpayer kit.

When I was an AT-38 instructor, we had a guy lead a 4-ship on a cross-country jaunt to some Nevada base. Enroute, he decided to drop low and cruise along the desert floor, off of any marked Low-Level routings or military areas. He clipped a set of power lines. Miraculously, he recovered the aircraft. Unfortunately for him, the power lines led to some sort of mine, trapping hundreds of miners deep underground with no lights or ventilation.

The State of Nevada wanted to charge him with some sort of felony for endangering the miners. All that saved him along these lines was the fact that the mine was negligent in not having emergency generators to take over the power loss. Last I heard when I PCS'd was he was grounded, awaiting an FEB, a board of officers that would likely take his wings.

I can see in a war zone that it would be tempting to hot-dog it a bit out of boredom or the fact that the rules tend to go away... but again, the professional simply doesn't do this sort of thing.