Why are we having so many Helicopter crashes in Iraq?

MikeGolf

I have been a passenger on a Blackhawk in Iraq on several occasions. Those helicopters fly low and fast. If anything goes wrong there is no time to recover.

Wartime flying is done with razor-thin safety margins. Those helicopters are being flown at the limits of their designs and the pilot's skill.

julie m

Did you know that men in the Army jokingly refer to Blackhawks as "Crashhawks"? Do you watch the news at all? Helicopters crash all of the time, even on our own soil during training. That's not to suggest that it's good or should be accepted as normal, but pay attention to the over-all flight record of these military helicopters.

I don't know what makes helicopters crash so often, other than the media loves to report every failure of the military with a gleam in their eye and doesn't miss an opportunity to make them look incompetent.

Even if they are being 'shot' down, this is a war, and our brave men and women risk their lives in more ways than one when it comes to doing their jobs. We should be proud that they accept this risk to defend us, and show our gratitude.

LAVADOG

Many missions are flown each day and none crash, please explain "so many crashes" , i dont understand how you can just focus on the 1 bad thing, then again i can.. Things break down, is whats going on

Colonel

It's a combination of things. The sand really wears out the parts of the turbine engines. The machines were never designed to operate in that environment for periods this long.

grann8r

Helicopters crash - it's what they do best. Not just in Iraq, either........those are just the ones that count the most right now. Usually when one crashes it only makes the news where it went down or where the pilot lived.

sci

Yeah everytime they crash in AZ or CA and kill 17 Marines no one gives a dam.n. Now that it can be used to further a political agenda- Front Page News!
If you had paid attention to previous crash/fatality records for these types, you might see that there is very little difference between training casualties and war casualties- in as far as Helicopters are concerned.

The life of a Soldier/Sailor/Airman is freakin DANGEROUS even without anyone shooting at you.
You "Heat and Sand" theorists have very obviously never deployed to the desert or worked on any type aircraft. Just so's you knows- YOUR FULL OF IT!

Ret. USAF SNCO

Gary H

There are as many answers to this question as there are helicopters in Iraq or elsewhere. War is an especially ugly, yet at times necessary business. I hate to sound cavalier about this, but these events are to be expected. The military does as much as they can with the resources they're given. They are some of the most dedicated people in any walk of life, but they are human. We should, as a nation, praise them and pray for them always, rejoice at their victories and mourn with them their losses.

Disclaimer: I am a veteran of the US Navy & Naval Reserves and current member of the Civil Air Patrol. I have a nephew currently serving as a door gunner on a helicopter in Iraq. It's getting difficult for the family to watch the news of these crashes.

Butterbar Bob

Rotary wing aircraft have historically been more susceptible to accidents than fixed-wing aircraft. Helicopter crashes have plagued the military in peacetime, too. (see links)

The inherent flight characteristics where power is absolutely necessary for maintaining flight means that if the engine goes, so does the craft - they cannot glide like a plane.

Second, because they typically operate at significantly lower altitudes, there generally is much less time to recover from mechanical failures or poor decisions.

And when at low altitude and high speed you run into a vertical windshear, the craft will plummet precipitously.

axsooted

man, helicopters even flying is kind of a mini-maricle. i used to get in, put my helmet on the butt-stock of my rifle, try to ignore the plunges when we hit air pockets, and attempt sleep until we were at the LZ.

mindworms

it is just a problem of medialisation of each individual crash. noone in the media cares how many hmvws are blown up, it is th helicopter or preferably airplane that attracts attention to the evening news.
the helicopters are operated in war, haven't you noticed? Plus the omnipresent sand and dust, abbrasion, corrosion, keeping the momentum of operations all these attribute to the high attrition rates of the helicopters. Why aren't they flying something newer? it would be even more expensive.

Me personallz I still would prefer to move along that battlefield in a helicopter rather than in the rhino humvee

btw during the Bosnian crisis our (CZ) peacekeeping(!) asset lost two helicopters - one due to the human error -controlled flight into terrain, another due to the attrition - screwed the tailboom transmission shaft during lift off, lost control of the yaw, crashlanded from 20meters.

accidents happen, these are typical ones for helicopters.

"helicopters don't glide.." b*llsh*t ...the gliding helicopter is the autorotating one.

grizzlytrack

Probably because they are flying them!! Not many crashes when you fly from your armchair!! USMC 60-68

idez9

The Blackhawk is a old. It was selected by the Army back in the Mid- 70's. It won the Army's competition because it was the cheapest replacement for the Bell Huey. And like anything else, you get what you pay for.....
A great example is the B-52 Bomber....cost a heck of a lot of money. Even more then the B-2 Bomber cost, in relative dollars. However, although it is more the fifty years old?, it will be in service for another twenty plus.

tom l

Do you have any idea how old some of those Blackhawks are???
The simple fact is that many of them are plain wore out, and still getting used to much.

Pfo

Driver error is one part of the problem, the other is the fact that sand gets in them and they require maintenance more often. Something that hasn't been mentioned yet is, unlike normal helicopters, these are usually flown low to the ground, using evasive maneuvers to avoid ground fire. The environment these machines are operated in is very hazardous. I'm sure they get shot at by RPGs and ground fire, over time damage from these attacks can bring one down.

slykitty62

Well, my husband was a Marine for 20 years and we lived on a bunch of different bases over the years. When we lived on MCBH, Kaneohe, HI, we lived next door to a helicopter mechanic. He spent most of his time scrounging parts for the OLD helicopters he serviced. I don't know about the blackhawks, but some of the equipment is getting pretty old.

Ryan R

its because of a few things. first you need to look at the environmental conditions...hot and sand. The heat makes the engine work harder to keep itself cool. the abrasive sand get into everything wearing it down. The lack of funds to give the blackhawks the maintenance they need is not there. It also can be related to pilot error.

bulletbob36

My Opinion is that the Sand has taken its tool on the turbine engines and it was grossly over weight. Under normal conditions the Blackhawk can haul 10 troops plus crew. But the weight had a play in this crash.

Dave_Stark

Hmmm, let's see -- helicopters that have been in service for more than 20 years, without sufficient money for adequate repairs or repair parts, patched together with duct tape and baling wire, because the Democrats and Liberals think we spend too much money on the military, and so they keep adding earmarks to the appropriations bills that siphon the needed funds off to their pet projects, leaving the military to continue to try and patch things together . . .

Being operated under horrible conditions for longer than their intended service life because Congress is too cheap to pony up the funding to replace them . . .

Gee, I dunno. Maybe because they are imaginary helicopters?

faulty_cortex

Lack of maintenance, spare parts are hard to get.

Golden

the last they said was mechanical failure. the one before that was also described as mechanical failure but was found later to have been hit by a rocket or missle. since it's hard to mistake missle damage there was obviously some kind of cover up. it is quite possible there are not as many mechanical failures as are being reported, and that they are indeed the results of ground to air missles.

Josh

Your Military has the best technology in the world, yet the most incompetent personell. It isn't always their fault but compare the number of American Helicopter crashes to another technologically advanced state that has black hawks and you will see the difference.

Just be thankful they aren't using Sea Kings

BumbleBee

It is not equipment failure it is lack of training. They don't train these Guys enough. They don't know what they should know. It is just that so many are going down and they have to replace the pilots with some one that is less trained. They really need our prayers out there.

George D

You answered your own question.

They are high tech machines - being operated under very harsh conditions.

On top of that, an unpopular war relying on volunteers to fill its recruiting needs means less qualified mechanics and pilots.

And just like our military personnel, their equipment is getting worn out - and rather than replace it, it continues to get 'redeployed'.

Meanwhile Halliburton & rakes in billions - and relocates to Dubai...

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