What happens when helicopters land too close to one another

boing
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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/03/09/what-happens-when-helicopters.html

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Here’s the NTSB report on the crash.

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Wow that attendant looks he was lucky to keep his leg.

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Jesus Nut obviously needed tightening.

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“Is that gonna come out of my paycheck?” :worried:

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Tis but a scratch!

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They say any landing you can walk away from is a good one. I’m kind of amazed nobody got seriously hurt (it seems).

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Mad props to the survivors.

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  1. Wow - so glad no one got killed!

  2. Do you think they will keep their jobs?

  3. Hope they had insurance.

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Remarkably, only minor injuries - 4 pilots, 2 groundcrew. From the accident report it looks like they parked the departing helicopter outside of the designated pad markings and the arriving pilot couldn’t tell and assumed she was clear to land on the other pad. Appears the design and layout of the helipad hadn’t been updated to latest standards and radio comms were not established between the 2 aircraft and ground.

As is typical in these kinds of events, a series of small, seemingly harmless decisions and assumptions combine together in just the wrong way and leads to catastrophic results.

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What you did there, see it I do!

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In the words of my children: “But I didn’t mean to destroy two helicopters!”

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And yet some people think it is a good idea to have flying cars.

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With unprotected blades and turbine intakes!!! Fuck safety!

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Have your kids ever had occasion to actually say they hadn’t meant to destroy two helicopters? My parents never let me go near helicopters…

:smiley:

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When those monsters copulate mankind is the loser!

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No!

Besides its not my fault if somebody leaves the doors unlocked and the keys in the ignition.

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When one helicopter loves another helicopter…

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Reminds me of that sequence in the martian where minor defects in the manufacturing process of the hab (well within tolerances for its expected lifespan) result in a gradual weakening of the material around the airlock leading to the explosive decompression.

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So the one on the ground was parked between two spaces and the argument was whether that was a common occurrence.