Posted on 07/27/2007 1:17:37 PM PDT by Milwaukee_Guy
Phoenix — Two helicopters collided in midair and crashed while covering a police pursuit in central Phoenix Friday afternoon, killing at least two people. Both helicopters were news choppers from local television stations.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Wow! Maybe that was the same one I witnessed in 1980. A couple of thieves from Roxbury looted a house in - I don't know - Somerville or somewhere'sville, stole the car at the house and went on a wild chase through several different towns - each of which picked up jurisdiction.
The whole line of 20 squad cars from several towns came screaming and wailing down Beacon street and ended up in a crash right in front of my frat house. The stolen car had run a red light (not that anyone pays attention to red lights in Boston) and smashed into a crossing car. The next several squad cars then smashed into it and each other - bam - bam - bam. Cops jumped out the windows of their cruisers and quickly nailed the driver. The other guy escaped on foot and ran into one of the BU dorms across the street.
Boston PD surrounded the neighborhood and used a bullhorn to tell the escaped robber that he was surrounded. I came out of my frat house to see what was going on. Apparently, the robber saw from the second floor across the street that the inner foyer door that I'd come out of had caught on the welcome mat and was stuck open. He came barreling across the street at full speed, straight for me - waving a big long screwdriver in his hand, closely followed by three cops with guns pointed in the air and all of them looking at their shoes. The robber was wearing sneakers - the cops were wearing slick-soled and slippery dress shoes. Go figure.
I stepped aside at the last minute - thinking that I'd get a big phillips-head through the heart if I blocked him. They all ran right past me and right into the foyer of our frat - where I thought he'd be collared against the locked door. But, as mentioned before - it was ajar. The robber ran in - closed the door behind him - waved his screwdriver at some frat mates and made a beeline for the stairway to the back parking lot. A frat bro ran to the front door to let the cops in - who immediately ran straight into the soft drink storage closet. They had to be pulled out and redirected to the back staircase.
Meanwhile, the robber had exited our back door then broke through the back door of the adjacent frat and was making his way up their back staircase to their front door. From my later perspective, it was an absolute keystone comedy, since after what seemed like only seconds after they had all bounded past me - like a Bugs Bunny cartoon they came bounding out of the front door of the neighboring frat house - thief still leading the way on sneaks - cops still focused on their shoes.
The thief then had open road to press his advantage on foot - and was making use of it. He was halfway down Beacon street headed towards Mass Ave and widening his lead when one of the cops yelled to a big grizzly adams-looking guy, who was in the thiefs path, to stop him. Grizzly stuck out one big arm and clotheslined him - then started to wail on him. The cops finally got to the scene and proceeded to wail on poor ol'good citizen Grizzly, since he was having too much fun going to town on the robber.
The cops finally cuffed the thief and led him down the middle of the street like conquering heroes - to the cheers of all of us frat guys and the other out-of-town cops milling around in the street. All of the frat houses brought out cases of soft drinks - and it was a moment straight out of a Coca-Cola commercial. It turned into an impromptu social pow-wow for all these neighboring police departments. The only thing missing was a barbecue.
Can’t believe this didn’t happen years ago in L.A.
A mid-air collision involving a news helicopter did happen in L.A. in 1966. In that accident a news helicopter, belonging to KMPC as I recall, had a mid-air with an LAPD helicopter over Dodger Stadium. Five people were killed in that accident.
My former boss once flew his Hughes 500E into town to get a haircut. The city council made a special law just for him saying that helicopters could not land within city limits unless at a heliport.
Later while violating this rule a police officer began to walk toward his helicopter and he dipped the rotor at him before quickly departing.
The FAA tried to threaten his licenses many times, but he always got off by explaining to them that the FAA central region’s annual legal budget was not enough to take him on in court and if they wanted to bust any other people that year they had best leave him alone. In addition to car chases and wrecks, some involving alcohol, he also balled up his 500E on a golf course while sneaking in low late one night after drinking at a party. The end of the story is that he punched one of his Sabreliner business jets into the limestone at supersonic speed after going into Mach-tuck while teaching his brother how to loop it.
I disagree however. I’m going to say that driving your car to the store is safer than hopping over there in your helicopter and I dare you to prove me wrong.
There should be a law passed that each news helicopter must include 10 lawyers in addition to the pilot and the talking head.
Balderdash!
I imagine the survival rate for helo crashes is practically zero. Loss of control = drop from the sky like a rock.
Actually.. as long as the main rotors are still functioning, (no power)a chopper is safer and more efficient than an airplane in the same situation. It`s called “auto rotation”. But the pilot has to be very skilled to be able to pull it off.
Autorotation is the engineering term for the aerodynamics providing lift in a rotor-driven aircraft such as autogyro or helicopter. It can also mean a non functioning engine on a multi-engine aircraft which spins due to the speed of the aircraft.
Autorotations are used in helicopters to perform power off landings from altitude in the event of an engine failure. During an autorotation, the main rotor is not driven by a power plant, but by air flowing through the rotor disc bottom-up (imagine a windmill) while the aircraft is descending rapidly. About as much buoyancy is provided as a round parachute of the same diameter. The power required to keep the rotor spinning is obtained from the aircraft’s potential and kinetic energy. An important contributing factor is the rotor’s inertia. The descent is at a normal and familiar glide angle to a suitable landing spot assuming the flight plan stayed within gliding distance of a suitable landing spot.
Autorotation is also used in autogyro aircraft as the main means of achieving lift during normal operation.
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From our buddy (wiki..http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autorotation) It explains it much better than I can off the top of my head ;)
What an idiotic statement. Unlike the police, the news pilots didn't need to be there and the perp didn't cause the crash. This was pilot error and he had nothing to do with it.
Even worse than that. From what I gather so far it went something like this:
Helicopter 1: I'm right over you.
Helicopter 2: What?
Helicopter 1: I'm on top of you.
Helicopter 2: Huh?
More back-and forth for 20+ seconds.
Helicopter 2: Pulls up into helicopter 1.
I don't know this is what happened, but I got this from someone with access to NTSB and FAA people. We'll see how it plays out, but if you've got two helicopters flying one on top of the other and either of them knows it, someone needs to move.
The kinds of reporters I was speaking of were the "How do you feel" kind.
The reporters who just act like compassionate people probably get more interviews. Thirteen years ago a lady from the Az Republic wanted to talk to me. My husband asked her to leave her card and I would call her back if I wanted to talk. Since she wasn't camping in front of my house, I did. We sat and talked. I even told her things that she did not put into her article. She shared a personal story of her own with me about her brother's death. These are the best kinds of reporters.
I always feel bad for cameramen. They always have a perplexed look on their faces like, "This reporter wants me to film what?"
With a police helicopter in the air, why do we need -three- newschoppers all jockeying for position and the best camera shot?
What happens when the police chopper has to break off or worse yet, is stuck by a nonessential newschopper getting in the way of a high speed police pursuit?
It would be like a news crew in a car or van tearing through the city streets right behind the cops during a chase.
How about if the police chopper has it’s own “dashcam” and the news chopper’s stay grounded during the chase.
The cops can release the video to all news outlets. That what is currently done with ground unit chases.
Why not do it for ariel chases?
This is one of the funniest, best-written posts I’ve seen in a long time! Another FRameable Post.
That’s interesting - thanks for that post. Does any video exist of the actual collision? I haven’t seen one. I’ve only seen the video which was from the perspective of the pilot and cameraman.
My understanding is that autorotation is used to store kinetic energy in the blade rotation, then at the last moment, the pitch of the blades is increased (decreased? reversed? not sure) to slow down before landing. Surely I could be wrong.
My understanding is that autorotation is used to store kinetic energy in the blade rotation, then at the last moment, the pitch of the blades is increased (decreased? reversed? not sure) to slow down before landing. Surely I could be wrong.
The simplest way to put it:
imagine the main rotor (the one on top) spinning in it`s normal direction. Start from the ground... wait until the speed is at the speed you need. You pull up the collective, which changes the pitch of the main rotor to give you lift. Simple enough.
Now, turn the situation around; you lost the engine(s) so you have no power. If you have forward airspeed, you can use the forward airspeed to your advantage. If you don`t have forward airspeed, you can still do it.
The first thing you need is enough altitude above ground level... then depending on your angle of attack (forward airspeed plus tilt of the nose of the helicopter), you make necessary adjustments... push your collective all the way down to reverse the pitch of the rotors so that while you are falling, it will actually speed up the rotors, while you are falling, and also act as a makeshift parachute to slow your decent down.
That`s the easiest way I can describe it :/ The rest all depends on HOW (what type situation) you started (forward motion or hover). If you started with forward motion, then you will need a little room (and pray for no power lines to get in the way).... and if you happened to be in a hover, you need almost no room, depending on the total size of the chopper (I wouldn`t mind losing the tail boom hitting a tree or something as long as the pilot/passengers/innocents in the area are safe).
I hope I helped and not hurt ;)
Oh, more thing... Obviously in this situation (2 news choppers), there was nothing the pilots could have done after the initial contact. From the picture, it looked like both choppers lost at least the main rotor, which is the only way the AR works.
MJ
Ah.. sorry, forgot to mention the last rule of AR, but you mentioned it in your post:
Last rule, pull the collective up again (change the pitch of the main rotors) to flare and slow the chopper down before you hit the ground!! (sorry I added this late.. but my previous post looks kinda stupid without the last rule >.< )
MJ
Wow...how sad!
I saw one at Blue Ash ,Cincinnati years ago!
I’m also a big fan of the P-51D, P-38, XB-70, MIG-21, F-4, F-5, F-15, F-86, and GBU-43.
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