Retired AH-1 Cobra crashes in Arizona

A Bell AH-1G Cobra. (Photo US DoD)

A retired AH-1 Cobra helicopter flown by the Army Aviation Heritage Foundation made a crash landing near Coolidge Municipal Airport in Arizona.

The helicopter was being filmed for TV show “Top Gear Korea” and was hovering 150 to 200 ft above the ground when it went down for an unknown reason.

Luckily, the two crewmembers walked away from the site with “virtually no injury”. The helicopter was heavily damaged in the incident.

Source

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2 comments

1 ping

    • Bill on March 11, 2012 at 9:06 PM
    • Reply

    It wasn’t “hovering” when it went down. The pilot tried to make a very steep 180 degree turn at a low altitude, and didn’t have enough altitude to fully complete it.

    He should have known better, and this is clearly a case of pilot error, not knowing his machine well enough to properly fly it. When you showboat in a helicopter, and don’t know what you’re doing, it will come back to bite you.

    1. The video does seem to show that the helicopter had quite a bit of forward momentum at the time of impact, so one can safely assume that it wasn’t hovering as was initially reported. For the rest, I must confess my knowledge of helicopter maneuvering is so close to zero so I can’t comment on the event!

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