LA police helo sniper under fire

[Pi1otguy]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-chopper-shot-20110426,0,1588935.story

Jet fuel was pouring from the bullet hole when the Los Angeles Police Department helicopter struck by sniper fire Sunday in Van Nuys made an emergency landing, authorities said Monday.

The pilot "heard a loud thump outside the aircraft and took evasive action," said Robert Price, chief pilot for the police Air Support Division. "He knew the fuel tank had been hit — he could smell the fuel and some of it got on the windshield."

Even zipping along at 500 - 800' police work is still dangerous. Do they get shot at often?

And according to other sources the gunman shot the helo because he was distraught over a friends recent passing. Luckily the family tackled him and held him for the police and everyone made it out alive.

 

[steingar]

Since it made the national news I would assume such acts are in the rarity.

 

[SkyHog]

A helicopter in Albuquerque was shot down, and at the time, it was only the 3rd time in the history of the United States that it had happened....

Its rare.

And yes, Albuquerque is worse than LA.

 

[PilotAlan]

Even zipping along at 500 - 800' police work is still dangerous. Do they get shot at often?

A helicopter in Albuquerque was shot down, and at the time, it was only the 3rd time in the history of the United States that it had happened....

Its rare.

Getting shot AT (and even hit) is NOT rare.
Getting shot DOWN is rare (the ABQ and Los Angeles examples).
During my time, both the city and county choppers took rounds, as did St Pete's chopper.

And the "3 times ever" might be off, unless the third event was the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office chopper shot down in 1996 (when I was working just across the bay).
There is actually history from before Google's cache started, and that isn't in Wikipedia.

EDIT: Ok, brief Google Search finds:
1 - LAPD chopper shot down - 2011
2 - VA State Police chopper got shot down in 2010
3 - ABQ Chopper shot down (as you stated)
4 - Pinellas County Sheriff's chopper shot down, 1996
5 - Bernalillo County SO chopper shot down, 2005
6 - Riverside County SO chopper shot down, 1995
7 - CHP chopper shot down - 2000

I;m sure there's lots more.

 

[SkyHog]

Getting shot AT (and even hit) is NOT rare.
Getting shot DOWN is rare (the ABQ and Los Angeles examples).
During my time, both the city and county choppers took rounds, as did St Pete's chopper.

And the "3 times ever" might be off, unless the third event was the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office chopper shot down in 1996 (when I was working just across the bay).
There is actually history from before Google's cache started, and that isn't in Wikipedia.

EDIT: Ok, brief Google Search finds:
1 - LAPD chopper shot down - 2011
2 - VA State Police chopper got shot down in 2010
3 - ABQ Chopper shot down (as you stated)
4 - Pinellas County Sheriff's chopper shot down, 1996
5 - Bernalillo County SO chopper shot down, 2005
6 - Riverside County SO chopper shot down, 1995
7 - CHP chopper shot down - 2000

I;m sure there's lots more.

In all fairness, Albuquerque is in Bernalillo county...that's the same incident.

Chronologically:
1995 - Riverside County
1996 - Pinellas
2000 - CHP
2005 - Albuquerque
2010 - Virginia
2011 - LAPD

I think the Riverside and Pinellas ones are the same incident....that means Albuquerque was 3rd

 

[Pi1otguy]

Well, "shot down" may be a bit of a stretch though. It was more of a precautionary landing vs the Hollywood style crash landing with panels lighting up, alarms going wild, with thick spiral smoke trails.

 

[PilotAlan]

Well, "shot down" may be a bit of a stretch though. It was more of a precautionary landing vs the Hollywood style crash landing with panels lighting up, alarms going wild, with thick spiral smoke trails.

Agreed. But those were all incidents where the choppers took damage that required immediate landing (fuel tanks, hydraulic lines, etc).
It does not include incidents where the chopper was hit but remained flyable (bullet holes discovered after landing).

My anecdotal experience would be that you could multiply that number by 10.
For incidents of the chopper shot at, but not hit, you could easily multiply by 1000 or more (estimating that only 1 out of 100 shots at choppers hit, and one in 10 actually cause damage that requires putting the bird down).

 

[airbornejohnny]

well on the bright side of things at least it wasn't an RPG or a stinger...and in this case they got the jackass who did it.

 

[bigred177]

Can't say I haven't been tempted to lob a round or two at the ghetto bird when it's hovering over my apartments at 3 a.m.

 

[denverpilot]

I was surprised to learn last year that a friend of mine who is no longer active in CAP, may be the only person with the "proud" distinction to have taken two rounds to his aircraft in two separate CAP missions.

One was into a wing tank, and required an immediate precautionary landing at the nearest airport, and the other was unnoticed in-flight, and entered the lower left skin of the vertical stabilizer and exited the upper right skin.

He jokes that the paperwork to report such things to National and the USAF seriously sucks, and that he earnest wished (even though in the second incident they didn't know they'd been shot at until post-flight) that he had a way to return fire.