Two Blackhawk Helicopters crashed at Snowbird Resort, Utah No injuries

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GaryM

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Gary M
I haven't seen this posted yet: I first saw it reported by Ski Magazine. Yesterday two National Guard Blackhawks were landing just outside the ski area boundary adjacent to Snowbird's Mineral Basin chairlift. In the ensuing white-out, apparently one landed hard and a severed rotor blade took out the tail rotor of the other Blackhawk bringing it down as well. No injuries reported, but this was an expensive misadventure.

Lots of photos and video clips out there, taken by the nearby skiers.

https://www.skimag.com/news/utah-national-guard-helicopter-crash-snowbird/?utm_campaign=SKI - NL &utm_medium=email&_hsmi=204754172&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_tgZx0ANaXl2lCGDl99pQ5tAr8Tb-LOkcZc1GdyB1iBHpZ6EziWQb217i73UNaooLIwsIoZESAcJYVgAOuqBHSpeV5iw&utm_content=204754172&utm_source=hs_email

https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=blackhawk+crash+utah&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

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Before we had VS panels we had our crew chiefs mark the assembly area LZ with old tires….100 ft hover to blow out as much snow away then a quick circle to land to the tire…always landing perpendicular to any tree line…once inside the white out a tire has the visual cues necessary to land…hope and pray the skids hit level ground and center the tire inside the rotor disk.
 
Warlock said:
Before we had VS panels we had our crew chiefs mark the assembly area LZ with old tires….100 ft hover to blow out as much snow away then a quick circle to land to the tire…always landing perpendicular to any tree line…once inside the white out a tire has the visual cues necessary to land…hope and pray the skids hit level ground and center the tire inside the rotor disk.
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At first It looked like they were going to do a high hover to blow it out and then come back and land. Instead, they just hovered forward and tried to pull off a white out landing from 100 ft up. Ugh.
 
Watched the video yesterday. Thought it was sad someone kept saying "Let's get out of here" instead of waiting to see if they could provide assistance...
 
Velocity173 said:
White out, sloped, no VS-17 panel, poor approach and bad formation. What could go wrong? :)
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I'm curious, since I know zip about helo ops - especially military ones. How were the approach and formation bad?
 
DaleB said:
I'm curious, since I know zip about helo ops - especially military ones. How were the approach and formation bad?
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Well, a snow landing is no different than a desert landing. Basically two types, one with speed (preferred) and one from a hover.

Speed and hopefully a headwind are your friends. Let’s say for arguments sake this is a calm wind condition. You want want to come in around effective translational lift (16-24kts) until just before touchdown. What that does is it keeps all your rotor wash behind you. You’re trying to time touchdown with the rotor wash (white out) reaching the cockpit. Now, there are situations (confined area, uneven terrain, rocks, bushes, etc) that won’t allow forward movement. In this particular case, while the snow appears deep, you could easily keep some collective applied to cushion the touchdown while the aircraft rolls a few feet. If they’re going to do this from a hover, then do what’s brought up above. Common practice is to blow out the LZ, go around and come back and land without the white out.

The formation. Well, the worst place you want to be is in leads rotor wash. Chalk 2 is flying about a 30 degree position. Preferably, they want to line up with the 45 degree formation lights and carry some speed til landing. If the LZ allows it (it does) even 60 degrees works well. Hard to fly that angle but works great at staying out of lead’s dirty air, Second, I estimate they’re at close to 3 disks away from each other. That’s a great position for enroute, but landing should be around a disk away. Prevents trail from losing sight of the lead if they do get in dust / blowing snow and allows for a smaller LZ.

These things will happen. It’s a challenging environment and the conditions can catch you off guard. Friend of mine flipped a Black Hawk doing a dust landing in Iraq (similar situation below). Went on to fly for 160th.
 
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I watched a Blackhawk attempt a dust landing at night, downwind into a FARP. The copilot saved them at the last second by pulling in a lot of aft cyclic, but they ended up landing backwards on the tailwheel and stabilator after rolling about 200 feet.

Fortunately, nobody was hurt except the helicopter. I sure did look cool under NVG's, though!
 
I can’t opine anything about helicopter ops. But I’m in the vicinity of the crash and can tell you the snow is extremely powdery. I don’t think wet snow would make the big dust clouds shown in the video.
 
I remember warning the Blackhawk guys to not attempt the "Desert Express" dust landings we do routinely in Chinooks, but they didn't listen and one of them chopped off the IR countermeasures (ALQ-144) on the top of his helicopter after hitting a bump after touchdown. A very expensive mistake.

Until the aircraft has come to a complete stop and is sitting on the ground stable, a go-around may be needed even after touchdown. These guys were in over their heads.
 
IK04 said:
I watched a Blackhawk attempt a dust landing at night, downwind into a FARP. The copilot saved them at the last second by pulling in a lot of aft cyclic, but they ended up landing backwards on the tailwheel and stabilator after rolling about 200 feet.

Fortunately, nobody was hurt except the helicopter. I sure did look cool under NVG's, though!
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I landed at a Marine FARP at night once and it was so dusty I lost sight of the refueling point just outside the disk. Just guessed on my alignment. Guy came out with wands to try and move us closer and I lost sight of him just hover taxing 10 ft left. Finally I said screw it, this better be close enough cause I’m not moving again! Battalion found out we were basically doing brownouts to a FARP and they immediately made that FARP off limits. :(
 
Heard some reports that the location was a normal/standard place for them to practice landings. Is that true? Pics and video showed them awful close to some ski lifts at Snowbird. I'd think they'd want to be much further away from the general public. Someone could have gotten hurt by flying debris.
 
fasteddie said:
Heard some reports that the location was a normal/standard place for them to practice landings. Is that true? Pics and video showed them awful close to some ski lifts at Snowbird. I'd think they'd want to be much further away from the general public. Someone could have gotten hurt by flying debris.
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I was surprised by that too. No injuries and that's the value of training, landing in this environment surely is not out of the question for these guys in a real world setting

But after that accident a number of years ago were the cable for the tram line was cut (I think in italy?) I'm surprised that they'd be practicing anywhere near people especially this close
 
Tantalum said:
But after that accident a number of years ago were the cable for the tram line was cut (I think in italy?) I'm surprised that they'd be practicing anywhere near people especially this close
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I think I've ridden on that lift. As I recall, it stays fairly close to the ground. Not that it eliminates risk, but the tram line that was cut in the Italian Alps was a few hundred feet above the valley floor.

I'd also hope the NG unit wouldn't be conducting low level ops within the boundaries of the ski area. They were attempting to land outside the boundaries of Snowbird, albeit barely outside.
 
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I was on a rescue above Sitka in '89. We landed on a small ledge on the side of a mountain. The freaking SIDE. The clouds closed in on us as we set down.

We didn't bother hoofing around in the soup looking for the guy. The pilots couldn't see me at the end of the ICS cord.

I'll have to dig the photos up.
 
FlightmechH3 said:
I was on a rescue above Sitka in '89. We landed on a small ledge on the side of a mountain. The freaking SIDE. The clouds closed in on us as we set down.

We didn't bother hoofing around in the soup looking for the guy. The pilots couldn't see me at the end of the ICS cord.

I'll have to dig the photos up.
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We did something like that in Kosovo. It’s kinda spooky sitting on top of a mountain and clouds blanket the LZ. Have to wait it out until a gap in the clouds comes.
 
It still makes my skin crawl despite flown into a hurricane once and other storms with hurricane force winds a few times.
 
Essentially the two types of approaches. Stay high and clear out the LZ or come in with speed. I think they were trying an HOGE clearing that just caught chalk 2 by surprise. Lead had a good tree reference (smart) out the left so they were probably able to keep orientation.

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And always be prepared for a go around when visual is lost.
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fasteddie said:
Heard some reports that the location was a normal/standard place for them to practice landings. Is that true? Pics and video showed them awful close to some ski lifts at Snowbird. I'd think they'd want to be much further away from the general public. Someone could have gotten hurt by flying debris.
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All the shots I saw were fairly distant and zoomed so they weren't as close to stuff as it appears in the pictures or video. Also they may have already initiated a wave off, it was a midair collision.
 
Silvaire said:
All the shots I saw were fairly distant and zoomed so they weren't as close to stuff as it appears in the pictures or video. Also they may have already initiated a wave off, it was a midair collision.
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The report didn’t say a midair. Second aircraft hit the ground and one of its blades slung into the tail rotor of the lead aircraft.
 
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