Drone blamed for Helicopter Crash in South Carolina

[KentA]

That poor helicopter instructor!

He is attacked by an erroneous drone, then his student doesn’t do what he was taught. Forced by circumstances to take over the controls, his helicopter goes down instead of up & people question his story.

If I were him I’d give up flying forever.

 

[hoggdoc]

See story below:
Charleston helicopter crash blamed on drone; FAA investigating

Total BS both helo pilots were at fault.

 

[MichiganMavic]

Didn’t know the “trainee” was a female student. Hmmmm.
[emoji850][emoji204][emoji85][emoji86]

 

[HOOKER1952]

It's my position that the findings by the board will reveal the crash was avoidable had the instructor pilot not allowed the student to put the helicopter in a critical position where the instructor pilot could not recover the aircraft from crashing. In other words the instructor pilot was way behind the power curve and late in taking command of the flight controls, thus causing the aircraft to crash. I will also net he was fighting with the student to take the flight controls because of the dual stick trainer configuration. Did I mention I was an Aviation Air & Ground Safety Officer school trained in crash investigation.

 

[787steve]

So, They didnt get hit by a drone, they supposedly crashed trying to avoid a DJI phantom, It had to be pretty close for them to be able to read the marking on the drone and be so sure it was not any of the HUNDREDS of phantom clones.

The Phantom is probably the best known drone, so all similar will be called Phantoms by the general public. This mistake is probably often made from carelessness or lack of knowledge. But in this case, it sure is convenient to claim a drone made you crash. Just sayin'. Could be. Maybe not. We'll never know. Only the two in the helo know for sure.

 

[LuvMyTJ]

 

[787steve]

This is what I thought could be the truth! They were very specific about the type of drone! I would think as a student and a instructor they would naturally e nervous especially when flying a Helicopter! They are not exactly as forgiving as a plane! If they had the time to see it was definitely a Phantom they should have had time to avoid it! But if the instructor wasn’t doing his job properly they could be making up a story for a bit of CYA! So he doesn’t loose his job! I hope the truth comes out on this one! I don’t worry about hellos as much as planes because they are much louder and slower than a plane! At least most of them, but they have a advantage they can hover so we’ll see how this story turns out! Definitely one I’m going to watch!

He did avoid it. He just didn't avoid the tree! As a fairly highly experienced pilot, I feel I always knew which way I would go with a conflict. And generally speaking, when near the ground, down wasn't in my menu. But he could have seen it in the last minute. It all sounds very convenient as an excuse for the accident. But I doubt the people in the helo will be changing their story. The drone pilot sure isn't going to volunteer any info. (If there was a drone). I think we are at the end point for this story.

 

[Simmo]

Well as a retired Army Helicopter pilot and having flown OH58s (Jet Ranger), UH1Hs (Hueys) and CH47s (****-Hooks) day, night and NVGs I can personally tell you other then having to watch for other fixed wing aircraft, other rotary wing aircraft and our feathered friends (birds) looking for something as small as a drone while flying 170MPH is not likely going to happen because of your rate of closure when a drone hits a helicopter. I have flown in Europe and have had a few bird strikes and I will tell once they enter the cockpit or ate ingested into one or both of your engines will result in a coin toss as to whether or not your aircraft remains to flyable, the crew is not injured and can autorotaye the aircraft successfully or you crash and burn.

I've experienced all of these except for the burning. Been shot down three times here in the states, twice by shotguns and the other by an idiot using an M203 training round thinking it had a rubber tip. The understanding of big sky little bullet is a fallacy.

Who on earth would shoot you down with a shotgun, in your own country?? (Unless you are in Hawaii flying 100 ft away from a balcony with young girls on it....)

 

[ac0j]

WOW, It surprises me that you can bring down OH58s and UH1Hs with just a shotgun or an M203 training round.

 

[Stach]

Who on earth would shoot you down with a shotgun, in your own country?? (Unless you are in Hawaii flying 100 ft away from a balcony with young girls on it....)

And how close to the shotgun were you, as they lose power quickly over distance?

 

[Afremont]

And how close to the shotgun were you, as they lose power quickly over distance?

I'm going to put my guess in now that he pulled some pellets through the air intake. Should have landed on the shooter.

 

[dirkclod]

And we have got Off Topic guy's

 

[Sprocket]

And we have got Off Topic guy's

As in they need to input a little rudder one way or the other?

 

[HOOKER1952]

Who on earth would shoot you down with a shotgun, in your own country?? (Unless you are in Hawaii flying 100 ft away from a balcony with young girls on it....)

In 1982 southeast Burlington VT, crazy Veitnam Vet, drink on his but on his deck shot 4 rounds and hit the rotor blades causing the shot to enter the cockpit and hit my passenger in the left seat, peppered the horizontal stabilizer and undercarriage of the aircraft. I was flying low because of bad weather and after getting hit landed at a nearby School and had to wait for the FBI because I was an active duty aircraft out of Ft. Devens, Ma.
The second shooting was in northern Lousianna and had flown over a still and received fire almost identical to the one in Vermont.

The last shooting was a 2nd LT from West Point who issued M203 live training rounds to his security guards. When we flew over with the Battalion commander and youg trooper ran out of the woods and fired his M16-203 round at our Huey. It hit just to the left of the right chin bubble, entered the flight control compartment for the collective and lodged under the collective on my side of the cockpit (right seater) We got it to hover around 8 feet of the ground but had to roll off the throttle to land. Had a hard landing and spread the skids. 2nd LT came running out of the woods yelling rubber tip. I took him by the neck and stuck it under the front of the aircraft and said rubber tip my ***. The 8ounce nonfragmentation steel slug caused a 4 inch wide gap and 18 inches long before it ended up in the flight control compartment. Had we been a little slower it would have hit the chin bubble in the center and ended up directly in my crotch...
Needless to say the Colonel took the 2nd LT and disappeared. This happened at Ft. Devens, MA.

 

[dirkclod]

Thank you HOOKER for clearing that up for our interested posters .

 

[MPPilot]

Let's say there was a DJI Phantom in that area at that time. Don't flight records get sent to DJI? Is it possible that DJI could search their records and find the possible culprit? I would think it would be in DJI's interest to either show there was no drone, or if there was, be a good community member and get a dangerous operator out of the air.

 

[Ifti]

Let's say there was a DJI Phantom in that area at that time. Don't flight records get sent to DJI? Is it possible that DJI could search their records and find the possible culprit? I would think it would be in DJI's interest to either show there was no drone, or if there was, be a good community member and get a dangerous operator out of the air.

Question is whether the drone operator was actually dangerous at all......

 

[Qoncussion]

Are these the first leaked shots of the Mavic II ???!!!

 

[dirkclod]

P5P

 

[Dw911]

Are these the first leaked shots of the Mavic II???!!!

That's really strange, could of sworn it was a plastic bag bag when i veiwed it on my phone screen, then i placed phone on the engine cowl got in the cockpit and viewed it again through the canopy, straight away i see that it wasn't a plastic bag, but it was in fact a phantom series drone