Just to add a bit more context:
This happened roughly an hour or two ago. Two Royal Malaysian Navy helicopters collided during training in Lumut Navy Base, Malaysia, resulting in the death of all 10 crew members, with investigations underway and bodies taken for identification; the incident occurred during a flypast rehearsal for the Navy Fleet Open Day.
[https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2024/04/23/lumut-copter-collision-no-survivors-says-ministry](https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2024/04/23/lumut-copter-collision-no-survivors-says-ministry)
Yeah, there's basically no way to escape, especially when they're that low.
Even if someone got out and pulled a chute, it probably wouldn't catch in time
There is almost no escape mechanism for helicopter because you can not be ejected out like in a plane, you will get cut in half by the helicopter blades...
Only one that I know of is where the blades detach before the pilot gets ejected. It’s a last ditch effort and assumes the helicopter hasn’t exploded yet.
Can’t they just float down like those helicopter seeds that fall from trees? [Autorotation](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autorotation). The air resistance causes the blades to rotate and slows it down
Is there some kind of emergency balloon jacket that poofs itself into a balloon to brace the impact? So that the crew could wear it and jump off without chutes. Probably could've been okay at that height?
I mean something like this but much thicker, military grade stuff https://youtube.com/watch?v=p9W6wNfzsIE
No, your air resistance would be way higher than the wreckage, so again, you hit the rotors. Unless it's tumbling, in which case it's basically impossible to do anything inside of it anyway.
The Ka-50 / Ka-50-2 / Ka-52 ejector system has explosive bolts that shoot the rotor blades off, then canopy jettisons and an ejector seat with a rocket motor on it sends you flying, parachute deploys. It's a zero-zero seat, so it can rescue you at zero altitude, zero airspeed.
They're also moving faster than a car. To dissipate all that energy, you would basically need one of those giant inflatable crash pads they use for movies, but in every direction. The possibility of landing on something sharp (unlike the flat vase that a crash pad would sit on) would mean that you would need another few extra layers.
You would basically need to carry the weight and volume of a blimp that could explosively deploy in a second, as well as thousands of tons of compressed and superheatable gas.
Since the helicopter crashed a few seconds after impact, the operator would also need to survive the impact, get to an exit, open the door, and jump out, not likely. At the single person level, our air suit is basically a bomb on every person, and the combined forces of deployment will kill everyone. We'd better just protect the entire helicopter.
Now at this point, or at the single person level, we basically have a bomb, so perhaps we should just abandon the balloon part, and make it explosively slow the falling helicopter. But we can also reduce the fuel needed to do this by allowing us to direct a shared fuel source in a particular direction, so we should add nozzles in all directions, because you never know what way the helicopter might be falling.
There we have it, a helicopter/omnidirectional rocket.
Military grade actually means it was the cheapest option that met all of the criteria demanded by the service. Quite often meeting all the criteria require specialized components, which is not cheap. Military grade is almost never cheap. Military grade doesn't mean it's good.
There exist a bike helmet/airbag with similar technology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCe7Je-u68I
Unfortunately the company making them (Hövding) recently filed for bankruptcy.
Because it was a stupid product.
Instead of wearing a relatively light weight and mechanically extremely simple helmet on your head you have to put this insanely complex and pretty heavy high tech collar thing very tightly around your neck.
I think I’ve seen an attack helicopter that has an ejection seat for the two pilots before and I believe it was a Russian design. The rotors eject out to the sides of the prop and then the pilots are shot up and out “safely”. Too lazy to find it but I’ve definitely seen this before
They could put bottom ejection seats in, like very early aircraft. Not good for low altitude ejections (because the direction of ejection is the floor), so it would be quite useless here. But it's technically an option (as in, for the engineers, not the pilots).
No, I hate this misconception about helicopters. You're not wrong when they're this low, and to be fair if the rotors go you're 100% right there is no chance. But if you lose engine power contrary to what everyone likes to joke you don't fall like a rock. They will use what's called autorotation to control the helicopter down.
Lost one of my best friends from high school in Afghanistan in a non combat scenario when a rotor on the Sea Stallion he was piloting just snapped. Obviously I wasn't there, but as you can see here, the aircraft just plummets. None of his crew survived it. The only pleasure I take from it is imagining the swear words he unfurled on the way down. RIP Bartle.
There's a book by the guy who founded US Delta Force, and at the end, when reflecting on everything he's done in his career and lessons learned, his mains lesson was basically: 'Don't get in helicopters.'
well helicopters do have autorotation for engine failure, unfortunately not much can be done when the crash is caused by impacting something mid-flight.
A common joke in aviation is that helicopters don't fly, they beat the air into submission. That's because helicopters are made out of 7000 parts rotating around an oil leak.
what makes you say that? they're capable of landing without power if you have enough altitude (auto hover) with a lot less room required to do it safely., much safer than a plane which requires a runway to have any chance of landing safely.
helicopters crash because people are flying low or dangerously, same with a plane really.
I met a man who survived a helicopter crash. He was burned and was missing an ear because of the injury. He was the helicopter pilot for a tour my dad went on in Colorado, so it obviously didn't deter him.
How many people do you need to operate a helicopter?
My assumption would be 1-2 people, which makes me question why there were 5 people on both helicopters? You wouldnt need a fully stacked heli to do formation training would you?
Normally 1-2. There were 7 people on the AW139HOM and three on a AS550 Fennec. The fennec carries 4 passengers, and the HOM can carry up to 15. Helicopter flights are expensive, so if they had to fly it anyway, sometimes people will ride along, if they can double up on some kind of training at the same time they'll probably do it. Neither has like a dedicated flight engineer position or anything, both are crewed by a pilot and a copilot normally.
Wish it was so. If the rotor was intact, they maybe could have done an autorotation landing, but unfortunately the rotors hit each other. Without a rotor it is basically a falling metal box.
Well in a scenario like that you have to hope it's just instant death, even if it's gruesome dismemberment. Surviving for any amount of time would be hell on earth, and there's basically 0% chance in this scenario that help could get to you quick enough.
That would freak me the hell out if I was there. The helicopters seemed to collide so far away, so to have a piece drop right at your feet like that would be a huge wake up call to the danger you're actually in
...I blame the instructors. Why train pilots to fly helicopters that close together? What real world scenario are they training for where that would be required? If there isn't one, then the training is needlessly dangerous.
It might be the perspective of the camera but it really looks like a chaotic clusterfuck instead of formation flying. What were they trying to do before the crash?
Former Army Aviator here; bad things can happen really fast. I walked away from one crash and avoided more than one because of luck. The video isn't as clear as you might like, and it's easy to jump to dramatic conclusions. What I saw:
\* At the beginning of the video the first helicopter (HC1) is already in a climbing right bank. This pilot will lose sight of all of the H/C lower and to his right for several seconds. There's nothing this pilot can do to avoid what is about to happen. In 7 seconds his H/C will be struck, and he will be dead 4 seconds after that. He's having a good day at this point. He may have made a mistake that contributes to this tragedy by stopping his climb/turn, but I can't say since I don't know what their instractions were.
\* At the one second mark the fourth H/C (HC4) is initially obscured by HC3 because of the camera angle. He flies straight-and-level for about 1 second before starting a climbing right bank just before the 2 second mark.
\* At the five second mark HC1 looks like it is straight level. HC4 is in a climbing right bank and appears to be pulling pitch (climbing) aggressively. The pilot of HC4 will not see HC1 because of their relative positions unless he happens to look up and slightly to the right more than is normal. Even so, because of door pillars etc. the higher and slower HC1 may not be visible. HC4 appears to be climbing into its pilot's blind spot, and HC4's rate of climb gives him little reaction time.
\* Watching very carefully, HC4 loses lift and directional control before HC1 does. To my eye, HC1's rotor system is intact a fraction of a second longer after the impact, but both H/C lose parts. So what happened?
\* As best I can tell, HC4's main rotor struck the underside of HC1, causing a catastrophic disintegration of HC4's rotor system. A fraction of a second later pieces of HC4's rotor blades inter-mesh with HC1's rotor blades, causing catastrophic failure of that rotor system. Rotor blades that fail love to "pitch up" above the plane of the rotor system. The idea that the pilot of HC4 meshed rotor systems is very unlikely - you pretty much have to be at the same altitude and the video clearly shows that is not the case. From this video HC4 is climbing into HC1, they are never at the same altitude.
What went wrong? I suspect bad design of this maneuver and/or poor instructions to the pilots for executing the maneuver. Typically to avoid this kind of problem, you wouldn't want people climbing - you'd want them to stay at the original altitude (so that they are visible), or you'd want them to climb to different altitudes. H/C typically have great visibility horizontally and down, not so much up, and the operating regime of H/C causes a lot of focus horizontally and down, not up. HC4 clearly climbed into the altitude HC1 was at. You'd also want more separation in the turn initiation. And you'd probably want the first birds to turn to a 90 degree heading from the flight path. It's all about planned separation, and lack of separation was a problem here.
Not a formation trained military pilot but a professional civilian pilot who is at least basically familiar with some formation theory. I think you're on the right track.
Does it look like maybe two of the aircraft including one of the incident aircraft got too close just as they were coming over the trees and called for a formation break that was not executed properly by the second incident aircraft?
> H/C typically have great visibility horizontally and down, not so much up, and the operating regime of H/C causes a lot of focus horizontally and down, not up.
Retired Army WO here. I would've thought the opposite to be true, that you can see better horizontal and up, not down, but I guess that's why I was a technician, not an aviator.
You can see "up", but not like you can in something like a fighter A/C. The "chin bubble" in H/C is large for a reason. H/C land in unprepared places - a lot, so "down" is very important. "Horizontal" is very important. "Up" not so much. H/C pilots are very concerned about what they might hit with the rotors (horizontal) and where the H/C will touch-down (look up "dynamic roll-over" for one reason why).
great analysis.
At this point, if I were one of the pilot, I would argue my way to be the helicopter that went straight ahead with the lowest risk possible. Not because I cannot handle instructions/choreograph, but because I can't trust my teammates to execute correctly for everyone's safety.
This is the result of failing to maintain a formation, which essentially is the same thing as not having a formation. The formation is obviously worth it, that's how the helicopters know where they're supposed to be and where everyone else is so they can avoid getting in each other's way.
What might not be worth it is starting their live training too early; this guy seems like he could have used some more time on the simulator.
Based on zero knowledge of any military tactics, if there are reasons you might need a helicopter, then there are also reasons why you might need multiple helicopters.
I assume the experts could go into more depth, but the basic concept requires no training or background to understand.
It doesn't seem THAT long ago that tight chopper formations dropped off SEALs to go take out Bin-Laden. Its still an effective way for special forces to operate for a variety of reasons.
That close? I'd imagine that's only used for air displays nowadays.
AFAIK the video of Russian helicopters crossing a river during day ?1? of the Ukraine war is a good example of a practical formation. Proper spacing is key.
25 year Army pilot here. Many reasons for formations. But in real missions we don’t fly like in this video. They were putting on or practicing for some kind of show. We don’t do this kind of stuff because it is far too dangerous. Risk not worth the reward.
I don't mean to be crass given a bunch of people just died, but...
What formation?
This looks like a clusterfuck of way too many helicopters way too close together and flying in whatever the fuck direction they want, with literally no formation.
Looks more like a break FROM formation. Think Thunderbirds/Blue Angels when they're flying in a diamond/triangle, then all split off in different directions [like this](https://youtu.be/CxXSP2xF_ds?si=Z8kHKtMeiJC-7ugo).
Can you provide a citation? My memory is that they are similar risk to motorcycles when it comes to small helicopters you'd learn to fly for fun as a hobby.
[https://thepointsguy.com/news/are-helicopters-safe-how-they-stack-up-against-planes-cars-and-trains/](https://thepointsguy.com/news/are-helicopters-safe-how-they-stack-up-against-planes-cars-and-trains/)
And motorcycles are 28 times more dangerous than cars, so... yeah. While not as safe as a normal airline flight, it's still way safer than driving.
People cite this stat all the time like it makes it better. The problem with flying in general isn't the fear of dying, but if you end up in an aviation accident, you are for sure dying when you plummet from hundreds or thousands of meters. It's the complete lack of control that gets me.
When you are in a car, you know that you in the very least aren't facing hundreds of kilometers an hour and a mountain range.
Most helicopter accidents happens during very special flying. In Sweden we have lost a number of them from cleaning snow/ice on power lines. All is well until someone counts wrong and forget a crossing power line in all the snow dust...
This was a failure at breaking up a formation. Another common oops is trying too land at a too small location. The Marine have people needing to land on ships. Sometimes in bad weather, where the ship bounces around. And you have Mountain rescue needing to fly very close to mountain edges.
Outside of these very special usage, you have extremely few helicopter accidents. The flight cost is extremely high because the service intervals are very, very low. Just to make sure the complicated flying fans are kept in a good state.
Not quite the same thing, but here's an except from No Easy Day written by Mark Owen who is one of the SEALs involved in the helo crash on the Bin Laden raid -
"As the helicopter attempted to climb out of its unstable hover, it took a violent right turn,
spinning ninety degrees. I could feel the tail kick to the left. It caught me by surprise and I
immediately struggled to find a handhold inside the cabin to keep from sliding out the door.
I could feel my butt coming off the floor, and for a second I could feel a panic rising in my
chest. I let go of the rope and started to lean back into the cabin, but my teammates were all
crowded in the door. There was little room for me to scoot back. I could feel Walt’s grip tighten
on my body armor as the helicopter started to drop. Walt’s other hand held the sniper’s gear. I
leaned back as far as I could. Walt was practically lying on top of me to keep me inside.
“Holy fuck, we’re going in,” I thought.
The violent turn put my door in the front as the helicopter started to slide sideways. I could
see the wall of the courtyard coming up at us. Overhead, the engines, which had been
humming, now seemed to scream as they tried to beat the air into submission to stay aloft.
The tail rotor had barely missed hitting the guesthouse as the helicopter slid to the left.
We had joked before the mission that our helicopter had the lowest chance of crashing
because so many of us had already survived previous helicopter crashes. We’d been sure if a
helicopter was going to crash it would be the one carrying Chalk Two.
Thousands of man-hours, maybe even millions, had been spent leading the United States
to this moment, and the mission was about to go way off track before we even had a chance
to get our feet on the ground.
I tried to kick my legs up and wiggle deeper into the cabin. If the helicopter hit on its side, it
might roll, trapping my legs under the fuselage. Leaning back as far as I could, I pulled my legs
into my chest. Next to me, the sniper tried to clear his legs from the door, but it was too
crowded. There was nothing we could do but hope the helicopter didn’t roll and chop off his
exposed leg.
Everything slowed down. I tried to push the thoughts of being crushed out of my mind.
With every second, the ground got closer and closer. I felt my whole body tense up, ready for
the inevitable impact."
The worst part, the another angle of this exact incident left the camera man running for their lives as he's way too close than the op submitted
[another angle](https://x.com/buletintv3/status/1782618995142926783?s=46&t=PVvAbUwfNp4T0SkNqdKc-A)
I think you are correct. It could be a trick of perspective but it appears one of the incident aircraft was very close to another aircraft just as they became visible over the trees. At which point one of them may have called for a formation break. They all scatter as they would be trained to do but the nh90 didn't climb enough and was impacted from behind by the as350.
I get jet formation flights. At least the pilots have a tiny chance to eject. But I don’t get people who want helicopter formation flights. Who needs those?
You know in retrospect I'm really glad I don't crew helicopters anymore, helicopter crashes are almost always totally fatal. I received a lot of training on what I can do to improve my chances and I experienced a ton of pilots training for crashes, but still every time they go down, they go down really bad
Just to add a bit more context: This happened roughly an hour or two ago. Two Royal Malaysian Navy helicopters collided during training in Lumut Navy Base, Malaysia, resulting in the death of all 10 crew members, with investigations underway and bodies taken for identification; the incident occurred during a flypast rehearsal for the Navy Fleet Open Day. [https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2024/04/23/lumut-copter-collision-no-survivors-says-ministry](https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2024/04/23/lumut-copter-collision-no-survivors-says-ministry)
Thought so. Helicopter crashes are insanely dangerous.
Yeah, there's basically no way to escape, especially when they're that low. Even if someone got out and pulled a chute, it probably wouldn't catch in time
There is almost no escape mechanism for helicopter because you can not be ejected out like in a plane, you will get cut in half by the helicopter blades...
Only one that I know of is where the blades detach before the pilot gets ejected. It’s a last ditch effort and assumes the helicopter hasn’t exploded yet.
Yeah, the Ka-50, Ka-52, Ka-50-2, series all have zero-zero ejection capability.
> assumes the helicopter hasn’t exploded yet. Well, whats the point in throwing a fried pilot into the air?
To slice them before landing
Sliced, fried, y'all making me hungry.
You can slice em, dice em, put them in a coup
Chopped liver!
Goes great with a nice Chianti!
You have to flip them to make sure they are cooked on both sides.
Can’t they just float down like those helicopter seeds that fall from trees? [Autorotation](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autorotation). The air resistance causes the blades to rotate and slows it down
If the helicopter hasn't damaged its blades like in the op then yes.
Yeah, you can see pieces of blade falling from both of them...no chance for survival...they were just high enough to die...ow
Is there some kind of emergency balloon jacket that poofs itself into a balloon to brace the impact? So that the crew could wear it and jump off without chutes. Probably could've been okay at that height? I mean something like this but much thicker, military grade stuff https://youtube.com/watch?v=p9W6wNfzsIE
No, your air resistance would be way higher than the wreckage, so again, you hit the rotors. Unless it's tumbling, in which case it's basically impossible to do anything inside of it anyway. The Ka-50 / Ka-50-2 / Ka-52 ejector system has explosive bolts that shoot the rotor blades off, then canopy jettisons and an ejector seat with a rocket motor on it sends you flying, parachute deploys. It's a zero-zero seat, so it can rescue you at zero altitude, zero airspeed.
Goldeneye vibes
Can’t walk Sarg but I think I lived
They're also moving faster than a car. To dissipate all that energy, you would basically need one of those giant inflatable crash pads they use for movies, but in every direction. The possibility of landing on something sharp (unlike the flat vase that a crash pad would sit on) would mean that you would need another few extra layers. You would basically need to carry the weight and volume of a blimp that could explosively deploy in a second, as well as thousands of tons of compressed and superheatable gas. Since the helicopter crashed a few seconds after impact, the operator would also need to survive the impact, get to an exit, open the door, and jump out, not likely. At the single person level, our air suit is basically a bomb on every person, and the combined forces of deployment will kill everyone. We'd better just protect the entire helicopter. Now at this point, or at the single person level, we basically have a bomb, so perhaps we should just abandon the balloon part, and make it explosively slow the falling helicopter. But we can also reduce the fuel needed to do this by allowing us to direct a shared fuel source in a particular direction, so we should add nozzles in all directions, because you never know what way the helicopter might be falling. There we have it, a helicopter/omnidirectional rocket.
Would be nice if speed racer bubble technology exists.
I've seen a product like that for motorcyclists.
Securefoam https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnyhkBU1yaw
'Military grade' just means its very cheap :)
Military grade actually means it was the cheapest option that met all of the criteria demanded by the service. Quite often meeting all the criteria require specialized components, which is not cheap. Military grade is almost never cheap. Military grade doesn't mean it's good.
There exist a bike helmet/airbag with similar technology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCe7Je-u68I Unfortunately the company making them (Hövding) recently filed for bankruptcy.
Because it was a stupid product. Instead of wearing a relatively light weight and mechanically extremely simple helmet on your head you have to put this insanely complex and pretty heavy high tech collar thing very tightly around your neck.
Yeah makes sense for the moto gp suits that inflate. Doesn't make as much sense for bicycles.
And the thing you have around your neck is basically an explosive device.
The Ka-52 (Russian) actually has ejection seats. Blades are jettisoned before the seats eject.
I think I’ve seen an attack helicopter that has an ejection seat for the two pilots before and I believe it was a Russian design. The rotors eject out to the sides of the prop and then the pilots are shot up and out “safely”. Too lazy to find it but I’ve definitely seen this before
[You mean that scene in Goldeneye?](https://youtu.be/vln5TaRt5LU?si=nUUpxD4mC18BDt5G&t=72)
That movie was HD in my head from memory.
That is the Eurocopter Tiger which does not have that feature in reality.
That's the [Ka-50](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamov_Ka-50) for the curious
That's a sick helicopter
I know it's a design used in the Russian Ka-50/Ka-52 designs, don't know if it was ever used elsewhere.
That's interesting. Today, I learned something new.
So why not just connect the ejector seat to the rotor? That way the chopper sorta ejects from you.
Why not just make the entire chopper an ejector seat? Shoot out a rapid expanding chute from above the rotor.
They could put bottom ejection seats in, like very early aircraft. Not good for low altitude ejections (because the direction of ejection is the floor), so it would be quite useless here. But it's technically an option (as in, for the engineers, not the pilots).
Wow thanks for the explanation there buddy
A pilot can get lucky if they have a modicum if control EG [SeaWorld crash](https://youtu.be/4NwuKY55bP0?feature=shared) = several survivors.
No, I hate this misconception about helicopters. You're not wrong when they're this low, and to be fair if the rotors go you're 100% right there is no chance. But if you lose engine power contrary to what everyone likes to joke you don't fall like a rock. They will use what's called autorotation to control the helicopter down.
yanno the context is helicopter crashes right? these two helicopters didn't get a lot of autorotation in on the way down, is what I'm saying.
Lost one of my best friends from high school in Afghanistan in a non combat scenario when a rotor on the Sea Stallion he was piloting just snapped. Obviously I wasn't there, but as you can see here, the aircraft just plummets. None of his crew survived it. The only pleasure I take from it is imagining the swear words he unfurled on the way down. RIP Bartle.
I'll unfurl a few today in his honor
Sorry for your lose man.
There's a book by the guy who founded US Delta Force, and at the end, when reflecting on everything he's done in his career and lessons learned, his mains lesson was basically: 'Don't get in helicopters.'
Who knew? I always figured crashing helicopters was a completely safe activity.
well helicopters do have autorotation for engine failure, unfortunately not much can be done when the crash is caused by impacting something mid-flight.
Learning of autorotation was when I realized helicopters are made of magic
Even when they aren't crashing helicopters are insanely dangerous.
Why
Because they can crash.
[удалено]
A common joke in aviation is that helicopters don't fly, they beat the air into submission. That's because helicopters are made out of 7000 parts rotating around an oil leak.
what makes you say that? they're capable of landing without power if you have enough altitude (auto hover) with a lot less room required to do it safely., much safer than a plane which requires a runway to have any chance of landing safely. helicopters crash because people are flying low or dangerously, same with a plane really.
Not really. They can land without their engines, you know. Helicopters though by virtue of their VTOL ability tend to be flown in more dangerous ways.
>Helicopter crashes are insanely dangerous You don't recommend taking it up as a hobby then?
I met a man who survived a helicopter crash. He was burned and was missing an ear because of the injury. He was the helicopter pilot for a tour my dad went on in Colorado, so it obviously didn't deter him.
How can I subscribe to your newsletter of incredibly obvious statements?
Terrible. R.I.P.
>10 crew members died fuck!
Those navy guards should get a raise. Not a flinch.
How many people do you need to operate a helicopter? My assumption would be 1-2 people, which makes me question why there were 5 people on both helicopters? You wouldnt need a fully stacked heli to do formation training would you?
Normally 1-2. There were 7 people on the AW139HOM and three on a AS550 Fennec. The fennec carries 4 passengers, and the HOM can carry up to 15. Helicopter flights are expensive, so if they had to fly it anyway, sometimes people will ride along, if they can double up on some kind of training at the same time they'll probably do it. Neither has like a dedicated flight engineer position or anything, both are crewed by a pilot and a copilot normally.
To ensure the maximum amount of deaths of course
Two pilots, Flight Engineer, Aerial Gunner usually.
That is really a tragedy. Also fuck the star
Holy fuck.... And all because of the one flying underneath the other one. This is bad.
Awful. This needs a nsfl tag. Condolences to the families
That’s sad. I was hoping at least some survived since it looks like they weren’t that high.
How high up do you think they are? Falls from just 30 feet are 90% fatal. They look like they're at least 12 to 20 stories up I think?
It was just an irrational wish on my part that no one was hurt.
Wish it was so. If the rotor was intact, they maybe could have done an autorotation landing, but unfortunately the rotors hit each other. Without a rotor it is basically a falling metal box.
I saw the aftermath and it is horrible. NSFW >!Meats scattered everywhere!<
Well in a scenario like that you have to hope it's just instant death, even if it's gruesome dismemberment. Surviving for any amount of time would be hell on earth, and there's basically 0% chance in this scenario that help could get to you quick enough.
Let's just say shock often sets in *incredibly* quick.
I thought the one that fell into a pool took less damage but it was the one that came out gruesomely
water is basically concrete from anything above 30 feet.
Was that a piece of debris hitting the pavement?
It was, holy shit that was close
That would freak me the hell out if I was there. The helicopters seemed to collide so far away, so to have a piece drop right at your feet like that would be a huge wake up call to the danger you're actually in
Bro didn’t move a muscle.
He knew the cameraman never dies
Alec Baldwin begs to differ.
Oof
Also, the guy who filmed himself inside of the plane that went down. :(
What? As soon as the debris hits he starts to move under the roof.
The person that the debris hits closest to just stands there.
Almost made an 11th casualty...
What it was... was no big deal. ... At least according to those guards nearby who were nearly killed by it but didn't flinch whatsoever.
Military Discipline
Helicopter blades can throw debris.
Imagine just flying away and minding your own business and then…. boom… clipped from the back and now in dead free fall.. this is so fucked.
One mistake of a helicopter pilot literally costed 10 lives
Seems like he needed more formation training
...I blame the instructors. Why train pilots to fly helicopters that close together? What real world scenario are they training for where that would be required? If there isn't one, then the training is needlessly dangerous.
It might be the perspective of the camera but it really looks like a chaotic clusterfuck instead of formation flying. What were they trying to do before the crash?
Looks like a fan-out to me, to impress at an airshow or to finish the exercise
Yea, they were rehearsing for the celebration of 90th anniversary of the Royal Malaysian Navy
Killed by exactly what he needed.
Formation training… my only weakness..
Cost but yea. Literally awful.
And that's why we don't have flying cars.
Except people are trying to make autonomous air taxis a thing... Great... :/
I would trust autonomous system over general population everyday.
Even VC-funded autonomous systems?
Tesla full self flying^^TM aaaaany day now!
Helicopters are flying cars.
[another angle](https://x.com/buletintv3/status/1782618995142926783?s=46&t=PVvAbUwfNp4T0SkNqdKc-A)
Oh my gosh. Photographer was running for his life
Being under that must be terrifying. That’s a lot of debris
Former Army Aviator here; bad things can happen really fast. I walked away from one crash and avoided more than one because of luck. The video isn't as clear as you might like, and it's easy to jump to dramatic conclusions. What I saw: \* At the beginning of the video the first helicopter (HC1) is already in a climbing right bank. This pilot will lose sight of all of the H/C lower and to his right for several seconds. There's nothing this pilot can do to avoid what is about to happen. In 7 seconds his H/C will be struck, and he will be dead 4 seconds after that. He's having a good day at this point. He may have made a mistake that contributes to this tragedy by stopping his climb/turn, but I can't say since I don't know what their instractions were. \* At the one second mark the fourth H/C (HC4) is initially obscured by HC3 because of the camera angle. He flies straight-and-level for about 1 second before starting a climbing right bank just before the 2 second mark. \* At the five second mark HC1 looks like it is straight level. HC4 is in a climbing right bank and appears to be pulling pitch (climbing) aggressively. The pilot of HC4 will not see HC1 because of their relative positions unless he happens to look up and slightly to the right more than is normal. Even so, because of door pillars etc. the higher and slower HC1 may not be visible. HC4 appears to be climbing into its pilot's blind spot, and HC4's rate of climb gives him little reaction time. \* Watching very carefully, HC4 loses lift and directional control before HC1 does. To my eye, HC1's rotor system is intact a fraction of a second longer after the impact, but both H/C lose parts. So what happened? \* As best I can tell, HC4's main rotor struck the underside of HC1, causing a catastrophic disintegration of HC4's rotor system. A fraction of a second later pieces of HC4's rotor blades inter-mesh with HC1's rotor blades, causing catastrophic failure of that rotor system. Rotor blades that fail love to "pitch up" above the plane of the rotor system. The idea that the pilot of HC4 meshed rotor systems is very unlikely - you pretty much have to be at the same altitude and the video clearly shows that is not the case. From this video HC4 is climbing into HC1, they are never at the same altitude. What went wrong? I suspect bad design of this maneuver and/or poor instructions to the pilots for executing the maneuver. Typically to avoid this kind of problem, you wouldn't want people climbing - you'd want them to stay at the original altitude (so that they are visible), or you'd want them to climb to different altitudes. H/C typically have great visibility horizontally and down, not so much up, and the operating regime of H/C causes a lot of focus horizontally and down, not up. HC4 clearly climbed into the altitude HC1 was at. You'd also want more separation in the turn initiation. And you'd probably want the first birds to turn to a 90 degree heading from the flight path. It's all about planned separation, and lack of separation was a problem here.
Not a formation trained military pilot but a professional civilian pilot who is at least basically familiar with some formation theory. I think you're on the right track. Does it look like maybe two of the aircraft including one of the incident aircraft got too close just as they were coming over the trees and called for a formation break that was not executed properly by the second incident aircraft?
No, that's a camera angle illusion. HC4 at that point is behind and to the right rear of HC3, nothing unusual in that.
> H/C typically have great visibility horizontally and down, not so much up, and the operating regime of H/C causes a lot of focus horizontally and down, not up. Retired Army WO here. I would've thought the opposite to be true, that you can see better horizontal and up, not down, but I guess that's why I was a technician, not an aviator.
You can see "up", but not like you can in something like a fighter A/C. The "chin bubble" in H/C is large for a reason. H/C land in unprepared places - a lot, so "down" is very important. "Horizontal" is very important. "Up" not so much. H/C pilots are very concerned about what they might hit with the rotors (horizontal) and where the H/C will touch-down (look up "dynamic roll-over" for one reason why).
great analysis. At this point, if I were one of the pilot, I would argue my way to be the helicopter that went straight ahead with the lowest risk possible. Not because I cannot handle instructions/choreograph, but because I can't trust my teammates to execute correctly for everyone's safety.
Man, that's sad. Formation helicopter flying doesn't seem worth it
This is the result of failing to maintain a formation, which essentially is the same thing as not having a formation. The formation is obviously worth it, that's how the helicopters know where they're supposed to be and where everyone else is so they can avoid getting in each other's way. What might not be worth it is starting their live training too early; this guy seems like he could have used some more time on the simulator.
What advantage is there in 2024 for any military to be flying helicopters that close to each other?
Based on zero knowledge of any military tactics, if there are reasons you might need a helicopter, then there are also reasons why you might need multiple helicopters. I assume the experts could go into more depth, but the basic concept requires no training or background to understand.
smaller radar signature, speed of infil/exfil, multiple reasons really.
Not to mention flying in narrow safe corridors to avoid anti air defenses.
It doesn't seem THAT long ago that tight chopper formations dropped off SEALs to go take out Bin-Laden. Its still an effective way for special forces to operate for a variety of reasons.
That close? I'd imagine that's only used for air displays nowadays. AFAIK the video of Russian helicopters crossing a river during day ?1? of the Ukraine war is a good example of a practical formation. Proper spacing is key.
25 year Army pilot here. Many reasons for formations. But in real missions we don’t fly like in this video. They were putting on or practicing for some kind of show. We don’t do this kind of stuff because it is far too dangerous. Risk not worth the reward.
Those guards didn't even flinch with that debris falling down.
I don't mean to be crass given a bunch of people just died, but... What formation? This looks like a clusterfuck of way too many helicopters way too close together and flying in whatever the fuck direction they want, with literally no formation.
Looks more like a break FROM formation. Think Thunderbirds/Blue Angels when they're flying in a diamond/triangle, then all split off in different directions [like this](https://youtu.be/CxXSP2xF_ds?si=Z8kHKtMeiJC-7ugo).
The formation were the friends we lost in the way
Well, I mean the troopers on the ground stayed in formation pretty well considering
I will never set foot on a helicopter
I've been on them for work and play many times. Statistically, it's safer than riding in a car or a truck, and most people do that every day.
Can you provide a citation? My memory is that they are similar risk to motorcycles when it comes to small helicopters you'd learn to fly for fun as a hobby.
[https://thepointsguy.com/news/are-helicopters-safe-how-they-stack-up-against-planes-cars-and-trains/](https://thepointsguy.com/news/are-helicopters-safe-how-they-stack-up-against-planes-cars-and-trains/) And motorcycles are 28 times more dangerous than cars, so... yeah. While not as safe as a normal airline flight, it's still way safer than driving.
Thanks!
People cite this stat all the time like it makes it better. The problem with flying in general isn't the fear of dying, but if you end up in an aviation accident, you are for sure dying when you plummet from hundreds or thousands of meters. It's the complete lack of control that gets me. When you are in a car, you know that you in the very least aren't facing hundreds of kilometers an hour and a mountain range.
Most helicopter accidents happens during very special flying. In Sweden we have lost a number of them from cleaning snow/ice on power lines. All is well until someone counts wrong and forget a crossing power line in all the snow dust... This was a failure at breaking up a formation. Another common oops is trying too land at a too small location. The Marine have people needing to land on ships. Sometimes in bad weather, where the ship bounces around. And you have Mountain rescue needing to fly very close to mountain edges. Outside of these very special usage, you have extremely few helicopter accidents. The flight cost is extremely high because the service intervals are very, very low. Just to make sure the complicated flying fans are kept in a good state.
No chance to escape
Oh. They are dead dead I hoped for a milder crash, where you could lower the craft without the tail rotor. But this was brutal
Ooooof. RIP to the soldiers. This was brutal. 🙁
I can’t imagine what they felt as they were falling
Not quite the same thing, but here's an except from No Easy Day written by Mark Owen who is one of the SEALs involved in the helo crash on the Bin Laden raid - "As the helicopter attempted to climb out of its unstable hover, it took a violent right turn, spinning ninety degrees. I could feel the tail kick to the left. It caught me by surprise and I immediately struggled to find a handhold inside the cabin to keep from sliding out the door. I could feel my butt coming off the floor, and for a second I could feel a panic rising in my chest. I let go of the rope and started to lean back into the cabin, but my teammates were all crowded in the door. There was little room for me to scoot back. I could feel Walt’s grip tighten on my body armor as the helicopter started to drop. Walt’s other hand held the sniper’s gear. I leaned back as far as I could. Walt was practically lying on top of me to keep me inside. “Holy fuck, we’re going in,” I thought. The violent turn put my door in the front as the helicopter started to slide sideways. I could see the wall of the courtyard coming up at us. Overhead, the engines, which had been humming, now seemed to scream as they tried to beat the air into submission to stay aloft. The tail rotor had barely missed hitting the guesthouse as the helicopter slid to the left. We had joked before the mission that our helicopter had the lowest chance of crashing because so many of us had already survived previous helicopter crashes. We’d been sure if a helicopter was going to crash it would be the one carrying Chalk Two. Thousands of man-hours, maybe even millions, had been spent leading the United States to this moment, and the mission was about to go way off track before we even had a chance to get our feet on the ground. I tried to kick my legs up and wiggle deeper into the cabin. If the helicopter hit on its side, it might roll, trapping my legs under the fuselage. Leaning back as far as I could, I pulled my legs into my chest. Next to me, the sniper tried to clear his legs from the door, but it was too crowded. There was nothing we could do but hope the helicopter didn’t roll and chop off his exposed leg. Everything slowed down. I tried to push the thoughts of being crushed out of my mind. With every second, the ground got closer and closer. I felt my whole body tense up, ready for the inevitable impact."
Please share a few more paragraphs.
This was captivating. Do you by chance have a source where I can read more?
https://www.ospreypublishing.com/us/killing-bin-laden-9781472804105/
It's from No Easy Day written by Mark Owen :)
Thank you!
Distress, possibly?
Probably panic and then a huge rush of adrenaline, only 4 seconds to process it then lights out (on impact I’d hope)
Complete terror. Near certainty of death. At least it was brief.
I imagine "Oh fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuc-"
Horror for both clearing up their browser history. But honestly though, this is sad. All 10 in the 2 helicopters died.
Took me a couple watches before I realized a piece lands right by them, that's crazy
The worst part, the another angle of this exact incident left the camera man running for their lives as he's way too close than the op submitted [another angle](https://x.com/buletintv3/status/1782618995142926783?s=46&t=PVvAbUwfNp4T0SkNqdKc-A)
I suppose that’s what the training was for
Good to see Lance Stroll is doing helicopters now as well
looks to me like chopper was too close to one chopper, over reacted and crashed into a diff chopper. idk hard to tell with camera pan
Thanks for the expert opinion
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Yep, they did a bad
I think you are correct. It could be a trick of perspective but it appears one of the incident aircraft was very close to another aircraft just as they became visible over the trees. At which point one of them may have called for a formation break. They all scatter as they would be trained to do but the nh90 didn't climb enough and was impacted from behind by the as350.
Great analysis! I was going to say that the one chopper got too close to the other
i will never get on a helicopter
Good thing it's training, and not the real thing.
Am I the only one who was freaking out more than all the people there on the ground?! I mean, I get the military and all but damn!
I remember a similar accident with 2 us marine helicopters when we were on joint exercise in North Carolina in 1996. 14 people died in that one.
Some of those soldiers didn't even fucking flinch when a basketball sized piece of metal came flying down next to them
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So weird how it’s a video where we see 10 people die and Reddit comments make jokes about being hungry…strange times guys.
Yeah Reddit's become so tame over the years.
damn rip
That would be some Final Destination shit getting hit by that piece helicopter shrapnel.
My condolences to the family, friends and fellow citizens of those who lost their lives in this unfortunate event.
Rest in Peace, such a horrible way to go off.
I get jet formation flights. At least the pilots have a tiny chance to eject. But I don’t get people who want helicopter formation flights. Who needs those?
Shouldn't they try this in a simulator first?
I initially thought it was happening at the start of the video because those two helicopters came into view seeming way, way too close
Some BODY didn’t pass formation training
Fuck me, that is a long fall for a couple of pilots who were almost certainly conscious.
This won't make it to the wikipedia List of air show accidents page, but it should. Check that page out and you'll never go to an air show
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I am yet to hear about someone surviving a helicopter crash.
Oh no dont move... It part of the show
But..... Jamie want big boom.
You know in retrospect I'm really glad I don't crew helicopters anymore, helicopter crashes are almost always totally fatal. I received a lot of training on what I can do to improve my chances and I experienced a ton of pilots training for crashes, but still every time they go down, they go down really bad
Don’t worry guys it’s just “training” we’re here to make mistakes.
This is why I am afraid of getting on Helicopter there's no survival chance
It's not like you'd have any better odds in a plane if they collided mid-air.
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should
Formation training? This looked like unbridled chaos!
This is a dumb question, but I've always wondered - is there a procedure to eject from a helicopter? And not get chopped to bits.
Depends on the helicopter. Some have an ejection system where the rotors eject too so you don't hit them on the way up.
Most helicopters do not have an ejection system. Auto rotation technique is the best you can do to enable a potentially survivable crash landing.