SAN DIEGO — Two Navy helicopter pilots from North Island Naval Air Station have been grounded over a YouTube video that allegedly shows them dipping the $33 million aircrafts into Lake Tahoe. In the video taken Sept. 13, both helicopters hit the water and one seems to spin out of control and crash into the water before its pilot apparently pulls the craft back into the air.
A Navy spokesman confirmed that the video was genuine footage of two MH- 60 Romeo helicopters from North Island’s Helicopter Maritime Strike 41 squadron, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported. North Island Naval Air Forces command spokesman Lt. Aaron Kakiel told the newspaper the pilots were grounded pending an aviation mishap board investigation.
Lake Tahoe is not a normal training area for Navy pilots. The helicopters were being flown home to North Island from an air show near Sacramento, the Union-Tribune reported. Damage to the helicopters was estimated at between $50,000 and $500,000, according to the newspaper, which reported that the grounded pilots had to land at Lake Tahoe Airport following the incident and a different set of pilots eventually flew the helicopters home.
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Nearly more than one cool dip in the lake.
Can anybody that’s a naval aviator comment on what these guys were doing? It a YouTube video wasn’t posted would anything have been done to the pilots?
Very simple. Garnish their wages to recoup damages and demote them.
#2. The military colloquialism is “screwing around” and the YouTube video is “unauthorised filming of naval airborne operations”. Or something like that.
And since when is Lake Tahoe en route between Sacramento and San Diego, anyway?
#5. Good Point.
#2. Damage to an aircraft because of pilot error can ruin a career. For every active duty pilot, there are a 1000 more just as capable waiting to fill their spot. They’ll probably get sent to drone duty.
Our tax dollars at work.
Way to go Navy! You really have some Hot Shots piloting your aircraft.
Maybe you should send them to Afghanistan. Because those guys crash when a wind gust comes up. Maybe its because they spend too much time hot dogging and not enough practicing.
Sadly this is a lot more common than we realize, and the military does little about it. Just like with regular police, it’s only when they get filmed or their stunt ends up in tragedy that they are held somewhat, but never fully accountable.
Remember the little stunt in Italy in 1998 that killed 20 people when a low flying plane cut the cable of a tram, plunging everyone to their death? Just like with police shootings, they were acquitted of murder, which it clearly was.
These guys should be immediately court martialed and discharged as an example to their peers. We want a fully professional military, not a bunch of rogue cowboys.
#7 Considering what a drone costs I certainly hope not. I would hope these guys get transferred to housecleaning.
They used to put pontoons on choppers but they stopped being that smart.
@ #2 Dugger
The proper Navy term is FlatHatting. Naval Aviation-ism for fu*cking off with Navy aircraft in a dangerous manner.
Im thinking their next career move will go by the acronym FENAB.
Ooops correction its FNAEB (Fleet Naval Aviator
Evaluation Board).
My bad its always pronounced “fenab”
Cmon, is that for real? That helicopter doesn’t look that amazing. $33 million dollars really??
Those choppers are not exactly waterproof. Ingesting large amounts of water is not going to be good for the engines, and depending on how much they are either going to be overhauled or scrapped. As well you are going to have to remove a lot of panels to check for corrosion behind them. If water got inside then a whole lot of avionics are in danger of having corroded connections and wiring in time.
This takes a few weeks of work, and is not something the groundcrew are going to thank those pilots for.
SOB’S wasting Taxpayer$$ and putting lives in jeopardy. Should have a court-martial for these ass holes
Hello,
33Mil for that chopper sounds right. There is a great deal of hi-tech and expensive electronics in that Sea hawk. Though they can handle ship duty and getting wet (rain), they are not designed to be immersed in water. Water landings for the SH-60 are not a design requirement. There are many nooks and crannies where water just got in, and will take hours of work by the ground crew to clean and dry out. For months after, that machine will have to be inspected for advance signs of corrosion.
The pilot could have been practicing how to ditch, but taken it too far. In the U.S. Army, we practiced ditching, but sat the bird in the water. The only Army bird I ever saw go in the water was a CH-47, so spec. forces could drive a raft inside. That caper took 8-12 hours to cleanup by the crew chief and crew.
These folks should be flying a desk, but a significant amount of money has been invested in their training. They want to land in the water? Welcome to Alaska and the worst flying conditions one can find.
That should be NEVER sat the bird in the water… We would hover 6-8′ over and we all got the point. Hueys are not amphibious…
The military gives young men the coolest toys on earth and we’re surprised when they play with them?
There’s a bit of good news in the fact that any water that may have gotten into the electronics or machinery is some of the purest, low-mineral water around. I did a quick lookup of Tahoe’s mineral content, and it is approximately 1/500th that of ocean water. Here’s a photo I took of Emerald Bay (the scene of the crime) about 4 weeks before this incident occurred. It would appear that the pilots were screwing around well past the island, probably fairly close to the mouth of the bay:
http://flickr.com/photos/54299433@N06/5023534117/sizes/z/in/dateposted/
Beautiful photo