The series of still photographs taken from surveillance camera video shows the fuselage, containing the engine and rotors, separating from the helicopter’s tail. The rotor blades and the transmission then detach from the cabin that’s carrying the passengers and the pilot.
The images were included in the preliminary report about the flight released by the National Transportation Safety Board.
“Several witnesses described hearing several loud ‘bangs’ emanating from the helicopter before it broke up and descended into the river,” the report says.
Justin Green, an aviation lawyer and former Marine helicopter pilot, said the sequence of images shows the helicopter yawing severely and the tail boom failing, suggesting it was most likely struck by the aircraft’s main rotor blades during flight.
Helicopters freak me the fuck out… At least in a fixed-wing plane, if the engines go out, you can glide. Helicopters just become fucking projectiles.
Depends on the airplane. My brother used to fly a stunt plane. It was designed such that he had to wear a parachute just to sit in it properly. If the engine quit, it had the glide characteristics of a rock…
Helicopters can glide too it’s just a little harder. When a helicopter loses power and needs to glide the first step is to aim it at the ground to pick up speed…
Step 2 is to pray you have the height to pull it off.
Psh loss of a tail rotor is easy, the helicopter basically becomes a plane. I have handled that exact scenario countless times in arma reforger :)