Why are their frequent crashes of military helicopters?

Question

I understand that some are hit by hostile fire, But many are reported as mechanical or pilot error.

I live in an area with loads of helicopter traffic: multiple overlapping police agencies, flights to oil rigs, private buisinessmen, some military, and (believe it or not, the largest number of helicopter flights around here is) the movement of cancelled checks from one bank to another.

In the 26 years I've lived here I can't recall a helicopter crash. So why are our people i n Iraq getting killed? Is there something wrong with the aircraft? Are the pilots not experienced enough?

We lost 13 soldiers this wknd and their not sure if it was fired on.

Whay are our people dying?

Answer 1

I'm a former U.S. Army helicopter pilot...UH-1H. OH-58, UH-60, and AH-64's. Flying in a combat environment often is akin to driving in a NASCAR race on a foggy night, without lights. It can be done...but there's no room for error.

We would routinely fly combat troop assault missions in pitch blackness wearing night vision goggles. Despite the technology of the things, it's very difficult to see and react when you're about to hit something!

(Many people have the idea that wearing NVG's makes your vision like seeing in bright daylight...not so. If you take an empty toilet paper tube, cover one end with green cellophane, close one eye, and look through the tube with your open eye...that's about the same level and field of vision you have when wearing NVG's...plus you have zero depth perception. Also, a sudden bright light will blind you.)

A group of us ( 4 to 20 helicopters) would fly without lights at about 120 knots very close to the ground...sometimes less than 10 feet...below tree lines, under wires and bridges, etc. Meanwhile, people would be shooting at us, or dust or mist would fly and make the visibility go to zero and generally it's a very dangerous way to fly.

Quite honestly, considering everything, I'm surprised that there aren't 10 times more crashes. We had our share...mostly things like wire strikes or blade strikes...but occasionally we'd have a wrecked helicopter and some dead soldiers.

Unfortunately, part of war is the game of attrition...not just of ammo and equipment...but human lives as well.

I very rarely had mechanical problems, and the few I've ever had, with one exception, were always discovered prior to leaving on the mission. I've never had an inflight emergency that required me to land or abort a mission. That says a tremendous amount of the quality of work of the Army mechanics and crew chiefs.

Answer 2

I'm a former Apache mechanic, and been in combat zones 3 times. Military helicopters are put through much more wear and tear than civilian birds. They are built to the same standards as civil aircraft. Bult by all the big names, Bell, Boeing, Sikorsky... The OH-58 is a Jet Ranger, same thing, just a few different parts. Army pilots are THE BEST helicopter pilots in the world, and so are the mechanics. And its true, the press thrives off the bad. Why is an airliner crash on the news minutes after it happens? Thousands of people get in car wrecks every day, but it doesn't get on the news. I'd feel safer in a Army helicopter than anything else any day. When you fly at 120 kts 50 ft off the ground, suck 20 lbs of sand into the engines when you land, deal with 130 deg heat, sit on the ramp fully loaded 24/7, get shot up, and flown like a fighter jet.... it wears on the man and the machine!!

Answer 3

The thing is helicopters are different from planes. An aeroplane by its nature wants to fly and if not interfered with too strongly by unusual events or by a delibrately incompetent pilot, it will fly.
A helicoptor does not want to fly. It is maintained in the air by a variety of forces and controls working in opposition to each other, and if there is any disturbance in this delicate balance the helicopter stops flying; immediately and disasterously. There is no such thing as a gliding helicopter.
This is why being a helicopter pilot is so different from being aetroplane pilot, and why in generality, airplane pilots are open, clear eyed buoyant extroverts and helicopter pilots are brooding introspective anticipators of trouble. They know if something bad has not happened, it is about to.
This clearly shows that its difficult to fly helicopters so the chances of accidents are also more.

Answer 4

I am air crew on one of those military helicopters and have three tours of Iraq. I can tell you from expierence that its not all shooting that takes them down. Some pilot error. Kinda like driving a stick shift car, talking on a cell phone, smoking a cigarette and changing the radio station at the same time...all while doing all this at a high rate of speed in on coming traffic. Not many helicopters just fall out the sky. The military puts priority on parts and personnel gloing into Iraq. So they have the constant supply of new parts. Remember too...the military see's it as...you are the last person tjat needs to know since you are a civilian. So the news isn't always right. The government hides alot of material and information for different reasons. Look at it this way...if we are losing 2 helos a week over there....why are we losing 2 helos a week in the states? Its the enviroment we're being put into.

Answer 5

Some times it's lack of parts or maintenance. Sometimes it's the way they fly an example being flying low in a sand storm. I personally think it's the new helo's don't have what it takes. I haven't heard of any Huey's going down except one that was shot down and no cobra's have been crashed or shot down unlike the Apache and black hawks. I can only surmise that the old adage the more complicated the plumbing the easier to stop up the drain applies. In the desert the sand reeks havoc on the complicated equipment the Army loves so much. It also seems to me the Black hawk has always been a crash prone helo even in peace time while the Huey rarely crashes due to mechanical malfunction. Perhaps when the shooting is done the Black Hawk will quietly be overhauled to fix it's problems or get some more reliable chopper.

Answer 6

There aren't a lot of helicopter crashes. The reports you get in the media are spot lighting less accidents than what it appears. The media loves the bad stuff, it sells. Although yes, about half of helicopter crashes are pilot errors (because pilots are humans after all), there seems to be a lot more crashes because that's all you hear. You don't get to hear about the thousands of good flights that helicopters have, it's only the crashes that get reported, so it seems like that's all that happens.

Answer 7

Its a law of averages thing. More people are moved in or on helicopters more often than on Fixed Wing Aircraft. Its the frequency of the flights by helicopters over FWA that makes this so prevalent.

Answer 8

A primary cause is the sand. Iraq is in a desert. The sand gets sucked into the engine of the helecopter and causes it to stall out and crash. Although I have not been sent to Iraq, I have heard reports that they try to ground all helecopter ops when a sand storm comes around to prevent the loss of lives and equipment. I have also heard that the sand is just as dangerous to ground vehicles (it clogs radiators causing over-heating, gets sucked into the air intakes, etc.). the sand is the main culprit, but human error can also play a part.

Answer 9

By their very nature, military air ops -- especially in a war zone -- are inherently dangerous. It's not like shuttling a bunch of businessmen around Midtown Manhattan or even servicing oil rigs.

If civilian helo pilots had to operate in that environment their accident records would be similar if not worse.

Answer 10

There are several additional issues along with what others have said.

1) Military helicopters are not designed or certified for the type of reliability that civil aircraft are designed towards. While a jet engine in an airliner is expected to get over 10,000 hours with mean time between failures (MTBF), a military engine might only expect several hundred hours.

2) These helicopters operate in very harsh environments. From the sand, to the blistering heat, to the deep cold that deserts can experience. It takes a toll on hardware. Servicing aircraft in the field is much more difficult than in a hangar on a US base in peace time.

In addition to the hardware and mechanical issues, you also have to look at the human factors.

3) These pilots and crew-persons are heavily worked and are in a hostile environment. They are tired and stressed. It becomes much harder to operate complex aircraft when you are fatigued and stressed.

4) They have to fly more aggressive missions. They have to fly lower and faster to avoid enemy fire. They have to fly in conditions that are not ideal for flying. The missions have to get accomplished one way or another.

These observations are my own, and may or may not be representative of actual conditions in Iraq...