USMC Huey Crash Photos

The tail is definately chopped off by the rotor, the a/c came in kinda
sideways and ripped the skids off. That is what you see under the tail boom.
You will not necessarily see noticable damage to the blades in this type of
strike untill you look up close. If he would have hit tail low, the "rip"
damage to the tail boom would have been upward instead of to the right,
which is consistant with rotor direction on Hueys. Also notice one of the
push pull rods is broken off the mast. But due to the blades flexing that
low to take off the tail boom he must have had low rotor rpm so it is
possible that he was in an autorotation when he was coming down, engine
failure or t/r failure. Looks like they are trying to salvage anything of
value before they are lifted out, since they are all on the tail lifting the
nose, maybe to get the FLIR equipment from under the nose.

"Griffin 704" wrote in message
om...
If I'm not mistaken these are photos of UH-1N from HMLA-169 that
crashed at Jalibah FARP on 30 Mar 2003, killing the pilot Capt. Aaron
J. Contreras, Crew Chief Sgt. Michael V. Lalush and Sgt. Brian D.
McGinnis.

The second photo you will see on the nose just above the pilots chin
bubble, "Crew Chief M. Lalush". The A/C crashed on takeoff.

Doesn't look like thats the right crew... the pilots spot has the name "Cpl.
Alexander" written on it, and the pilots side crew door has "Crew Chief Cxx
DxxL" on it. Unless it was a swapped crew? Not familair with if they do
that.

Doesn't look like any fatalities to me. I don't see any bodies, any signs
of anyone tending to wounded crew, and no medical gear strewn about. Unless
they all died at the hospital, and even then, there had to be some down time
between impact and pickup, in which I'd imagine there would be a site of
medical aid.

-Mike

"Griffin 704" wrote in message
om...
If I'm not mistaken these are photos of UH-1N from HMLA-169 that
crashed at Jalibah FARP on 30 Mar 2003, killing the pilot Capt. Aaron
J. Contreras, Crew Chief Sgt. Michael V. Lalush and Sgt. Brian D.
McGinnis.

The second photo you will see on the nose just above the pilots chin
bubble, "Crew Chief M. Lalush". The A/C crashed on takeoff.

Originally Posted by Mike \Rotor\ Nowak

Doesn't look like thats the right crew... the pilots spot has the name "Cpl.
Alexander" written on it, and the pilots side crew door has "Crew Chief Cxx
DxxL" on it. Unless it was a swapped crew? Not familair with if they do
that.

Doesn't look like any fatalities to me. I don't see any bodies, any signs
of anyone tending to wounded crew, and no medical gear strewn about. Unless
they all died at the hospital, and even then, there had to be some down time
between impact and pickup, in which I'd imagine there would be a site of
medical aid.

-Mike

"Griffin 704" wrote in message
om...
If I'm not mistaken these are photos of UH-1N from HMLA-169 that
crashed at Jalibah FARP on 30 Mar 2003, killing the pilot Capt. Aaron
J. Contreras, Crew Chief Sgt. Michael V. Lalush and Sgt. Brian D.
McGinnis.

The second photo you will see on the nose just above the pilots chin
bubble, "Crew Chief M. Lalush". The A/C crashed on takeoff.

I notice that this is a pretty old post but i just happened to stumble uppon it and couldn't resist putting a word in.

I joined HMLA 169 a few months after the fatal UH-1N crash in March 03. I'm pretty sure this is not that crash. Stranger things have happened, but I've seen worse crashes than this and the crew survived. In fact, I would call this a "hard landing" more than a crash. These things tend to be unrecognizable if they really crash... I think in a few of the pictures, they guys lying and sleeping on the gear next to aircraft are probably the crew. Would you sleep on a dead comrade's gear?

The names on the side of the aircraft usually mean very little. Also, Each squadron has there own unique way of painting things and HLMA 169 birds usually have a maltese cross on them (the units logo) This one looks like it has some kind of logo on the panel above the sliding cabin door. I don't recognize it so its most likely an "east coast" squadron if I had to guess.

So I'll tell you what I do know:

plus, in
the above pic, it looks like they're disconnecting the batt, something I
doubt they'd wait long after the crash to do...

Notice no big battery
disconnect?

I would say that they are probably the pilots and yes, they look to be disconnecting the battery. That bottom part of the nose also opens to remove the battery, you can't see it in the picture so you can't see the cable and disconnect...

My opinion saying tail low landing was drawn from these parameters:

A) No apparent MRB Damages from possibly hitting the tailboom

B) No apparent damage to tail rotor blades as from strikin the ground under
power (tial rotors stop pretty damned fast when the T/R driveshaft is
sheared and probably jammed.

C) The angle of the sheared off tailboom appears to be from a forward motion
of the aircraft and a groumd strike causing that angular appearance.

I don't know that bird, but the stinger looks more like a car antenna as if
maybe a bit is missing to be found further behind.
I'm supposing after 20 yars of heavy helicopter maintenance. All my
bull**** and a quarter will buy me a phone call.

I worked on these things for 5 years, they're not quite as tough as a heavy helicopter would be.

Main rotor took out the tail boom. (The tail boom is light weight, two men can lift it without the gear boxes.) The bird came in hard, belly first with little forward air speed, broke the skids (you can even see a deep impact from the skid in one image) The force of the impact caused the rotor to drop low enough to take out the tail boom.

The stinger is in tact, thats just how small it is. Doesn't look like it hit anything to me.

What strikes me as odd are that both skid gear are on the
left side next to the fuselage and the unusual dent pattern on the top of
the skid under the aircraft. You will notice what appear to be skid marks
at an angle to the aircraft. But, the oddest part is that taliboom is off
to the side and in front of the aircraft

The aircraft bounced and turned a little, leaving both skids where they broke, thus both skids being on one side. Luckily for the crew, they didn't roll it.

Force of the blow from the main rotor threw the tail boom in front and right of the initial crash sight. (blades go ctr clkwise)

Also, it appears that both counter measures pods
have been used.

These things went off all of the time, almost randomly it seemed. Hell, I almost got taken out by one when a huey was coming in to land. The system seemed to go off any time it saw a flash, wether it was really a rocket firing or just the glint off of a car window or tin roof...

If I had to put a guess about what actually caused the crash, I would say it was an engine failure or collective problem of some kind. The crew looks to calm to have taken fire and gone down. If you had just been shot down in hostile territory, would take your gun off of its mount and take a nap?

I think they had control of the tail rotor when it came it because the aircraft only yawed after impact, and it did so in the opposite direction it would have went if it had lost tail rotor control. Plus, you've only got a 15% chance of SURVIVAL if you loose the tail rotor, let alone a nice pretty landing like this...

Well, I was with HML/A-167 during the time of this crash and know the crew. The crew was from HML/1-269 and this was during the invasion phase of OIF. The crew flying this was not who is written on the outside. No one was killed in this crash. The main rotor did slice the tail boom off. I wont go any further to protect the names of those involved, but that's it.

As a side note, I was doing OJT with HML/A-169 during the time of their previously mentioned crash. I attended the funeral on base and very briefly knew the crew. Their crash occurred not long before this one.

Originally Posted by Greenwood_Ranches

I notice that this is a pretty old post but i just happened to stumble uppon it and couldn't resist putting a word in.

I joined HMLA 169 a few months after the fatal UH-1N crash in March 03. I'm pretty sure this is not that crash. Stranger things have happened, but I've seen worse crashes than this and the crew survived. In fact, I would call this a "hard landing" more than a crash. These things tend to be unrecognizable if they really crash... I think in a few of the pictures, they guys lying and sleeping on the gear next to aircraft are probably the crew. Would you sleep on a dead comrade's gear?

The names on the side of the aircraft usually mean very little. Also, Each squadron has there own unique way of painting things and HLMA 169 birds usually have a maltese cross on them (the units logo) This one looks like it has some kind of logo on the panel above the sliding cabin door. I don't recognize it so its most likely an "east coast" squadron if I had to guess.

So I'll tell you what I do know:





I would say that they are probably the pilots and yes, they look to be disconnecting the battery. That bottom part of the nose also opens to remove the battery, you can't see it in the picture so you can't see the cable and disconnect...





I worked on these things for 5 years, they're not quite as tough as a heavy helicopter would be.

Main rotor took out the tail boom. (The tail boom is light weight, two men can lift it without the gear boxes.) The bird came in hard, belly first with little forward air speed, broke the skids (you can even see a deep impact from the skid in one image) The force of the impact caused the rotor to drop low enough to take out the tail boom.

The stinger is in tact, thats just how small it is. Doesn't look like it hit anything to me.



The aircraft bounced and turned a little, leaving both skids where they broke, thus both skids being on one side. Luckily for the crew, they didn't roll it.

Force of the blow from the main rotor threw the tail boom in front and right of the initial crash sight. (blades go ctr clkwise)



These things went off all of the time, almost randomly it seemed. Hell, I almost got taken out by one when a huey was coming in to land. The system seemed to go off any time it saw a flash, wether it was really a rocket firing or just the glint off of a car window or tin roof...

If I had to put a guess about what actually caused the crash, I would say it was an engine failure or collective problem of some kind. The crew looks to calm to have taken fire and gone down. If you had just been shot down in hostile territory, would take your gun off of its mount and take a nap?

I think they had control of the tail rotor when it came it because the aircraft only yawed after impact, and it did so in the opposite direction it would have went if it had lost tail rotor control. Plus, you've only got a 15% chance of SURVIVAL if you loose the tail rotor, let alone a nice pretty landing like this...