Black Hawk down
ONE Australian soldier is dead and another is missing after a Black Hawk helicopter crashed into the sea while landing aboard HMAS Kanimbla off Fiji today.
The victim was pulled alive from the water after the helicopter went down but died as he was being treated for his injuries aboard the Kanimbla. He has not been named.Seven other soldiers were injured but are not in a serious condition. A total of 10 personnel – including six SAS troops – were on board. Over the last decade, Australia has lost many more service personnel in helicopter accidents than from any other cause. In the tragedy on Nias Island, Indonesia, in April 2005, nine died when a navy Sea King helicopter crashed as it came in to land. In June 1996, 18 servicemen, including 15 members of the crack Special Air Service regiment, died when two helicopters collided during a training exercise near Townsville in Queensland. The names have not been released yet and all of the defence community and those of us interested in their welfare will have an uneasy time until we know the fate of the missing trooper. You might spare a thought for those at home waiting for the knock on the door. Tonight and tomorrow morning a wife or mother will answer a knock on the door and will see an army padre and attending officer and her world will fall apart. It’s sad but if you live on the edge oft times someone falls over.
Facebook
Twitter
Alas, helicopters are, as a
Boeing bloke once said to me, an “unnatural act”.
THE crash that reeks of military halfwit-ed-ness is the mid-air with 18 very high value individuals killed.
For some reason beyond the ken of 20,000 hour hot, high, mostly on the margins, civilian pilots, the ADF insists on flying near overlapping rotar sorties at night.
Guess it must fit the constraints of the orderly military mind, on account of it has no operational purpose.
Unless you have a couple of thousands of hours flying in the left seat of a Black Hawke your comment could be construed as a putdown.
Tactical nape of the earth flying, landing on pitching and yawing ships; flying at night with SASR on board is not something civilian pilots know a lot about but it’s something the ADF train for and do real-time, all the time.
…on account of it has no operational purpose
It does actually – Insertion of more than one chopper load of troops is dependant on the tactical situation..nice to fly with hundreds of feet separation but infantry commanders have this funny thing about concentration of troops or, not splitting their command. To pile on troops for battle or onto a ship underway requires precision
flying to avoid the dangers of piecemeal deployment.
It has tactical purpose.
Rubbish Kev, end point navigational accuracy is no reason to fly helicopters within a too easy ‘mid air collision envelope’….visual contact with NV is no problem…
So you’re saying flying 50 metres separation, perfectly safe D/N, is a navigation problem? … :-)
The 18 KIT crashed due inadequate separation not nape of the earth flying.
Military’s biggest problem is the very low hour experience helicopter pilots…good training but deadly low hours.
If the ADF want minimal crashes due inexperienced rotary pilots it should recruit half a dozen of NZ’s vension recovery aces….just to have a look at a standard.
No, I’m not saying it has anything to do with navigation. It is about getting the troops on the ground in a tactical formation…ie close together and at the same moment.
I totally agree that one of the contributing factors to Townsville was the lack of flying hours training. NGVs didn’t help either but notwithstanding all of that they must be capable of formation tactical flying. Trying to hang the prang on Pilot error ignored the budget restrictions that didn’t allow the pilots enough training. I trust things have changed.
They certainly have the hours up now
You’re an ok bouquet Kev.
But less than 17000 hours I think.
If the military has an enroute collision problem due to halfwit close flying requirements, ie the 18 KIT… what you do is fly separation until a standardised form up close to the drop off site …your 18 survive immediately.
Too little problem solving in the military…too much dogma.
Too much Dogma….no way. Every risky procedure is up for discussion all the time. Do you think the ADF aren’t aware of the risk factors involved? I don’t recall the outcome of the inquiry other than lack of air hours, some inexperienced pax and the NGVs were contributing factors but the prang occurred very close to the DZ – so they most probably did fly separate until on finals.
You seem to believe we are cowboys and it’s definitely not the case. The ADF have procedures like everyone else in the air but their training is supposed to simulate combat and that alone forces all concerned to push time and space. I wasn’t at Townsville then but I’ve done lots of insertions and we ended being good – both pax and aircrew. Of course, that was only after a lot of training and not a few mishaps.
Ok, Kev.
You’re stuck in the operational dogmas of the past.
There is no reason, EVER, for any enroute collisions. Shitter stuff is done each hour of each day by highly experienced civilians earning a living.
The military came to us to learn how to fly P3s fuel efficiently, they couldn’t believe how it was done….
continued attention to profile detail was the crux.
The RAAF modified their night operation expectations for laughably low hour Mirage “aces” when a string went into the sea at night following the leader, decades ago off the mid north coast of NSW.
The military spend much time operating in the last conflict and looking efficient in straight lines.
Qantas, for example, could easily sort out the military’s suspect operational procedures as a public service….
Guess I’ll leave it at that.