Opps! Pilot Error?

The slicks as they’re called are the Hueys that carry ass and trash, (people or supplies) and fly twelve-plus hours a day. This causes fatigue as one would imagine. This leads to mistakes.

This pilot approached the fire support base too fast and should have aborted the landing and kept flying and circle around and repeat the approach. Since that didn’t happen he hit the ground very hard causing the rotor blades to flex down and cut off the tail of the ship. At the end of the tail is the tail rotor. These blades are anti-torque blades and prevent the helicopter from spinning in the opposite direction of the large main rotor blades, which is one of Newton’s laws: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. So when the tail rotor was eliminated the ship started spinning wildly and the main rotor blades struck the ground and broke apart causing the ship to roll onto its top and luckily did not start burning. One of the main rotor blades can be seen at the end of the ship.

The army sent twelve thousand Hueys in Vietnam and half were destroyed. It was one of the most dangerous jobs in the war.