WATCHING OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM unfold, one might be left wondering what’s going on with the coalition’s air operations. Why is it that so many helicopters, several carrying precious human cargo, have crashed? Coming in just the first five days of the war, the crashes have even more of an impact because they have heralded some of the war’s first casualties.
The coalition has lost nearly a half dozen helicopters in less than a week of fighting, resulting in 19 deaths and two pilots captured. On the flip side, only one coalition fix-wing aircraft has been lost: a British GR4 Tornado attack jet, which was shot down accidentally by a U.S. Patriot Missile battery.
As aircraft, helicopters are inherently dangerous and difficult to fly. Their mechanics and the simple fact that they fly so close to the ground leave little margin for error. They do have unique safety features, however, such as their ability to auto-rotate (if a helicopter loses power it can essentially drop safely from the sky by allowing its rotor blades rotate freely, slowing its decent) and their ability to take a lot of abuse. The builders of the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter and the H-60 Black Hawk transport, for example, designed them with redundant power systems and bullet-proof sheeting to protect the crew and passenger cabin from small arms fire.
With all the built-in safety features, then, why so many helo crashes? The short answer is: operations.
Of the nine helicopter crashes suffered by the Air Force in 2002, all of them were attributed to “operations” as opposed to maintenance mistakes or mechanical failures. The Air Force helo fleet is made up of aircraft whose mission is to fly at very low altitudes and often at night. The MH-53 Pave Low and the MH-60 Pave Hawk, two of the Air Force’s principal helicopters, are used for risky commando insertion missions and rescue operations. Their pilots, more often than not, fly at night using night vision goggles and terrain-following radar less than 100 feet off the deck. Despite the technology and rigorous training, accidents do happen. And when they do, it’s often a total loss. There are no ejection seats on helicopters–no one wears parachutes.
Likewise the Marine Corps and Army attack helicopter fleets–Apaches and AH-1 Cobra gunships–expose themselves to fire during operations and fly risky flight profiles that force them to bob and weave through valleys and forests to cover their approach. In January, two Marine Cobras collided during night counter-drug operations in Texas. Both two-man crews were killed.
The environment also contributes to the high accident rate. Fixed-wing jets can fly high above bad weather, but helicopters cannot. During missions, helicopters have to fly straight through the battering wind and rain. Additionally, sand and dust can block a pilot’s vision during landings, causing what the military calls a “hard landing.” Such incidents rarely result in fatalities, but the aircraft itself is often irreparably damaged. The Marines lost a CH-53 Super Stallion during operations in Afghanistan due to a hard landing. The Marine CH-46 Sea Knight that crashed on March 21 in Kuwait with eight British Royal Marine Commandos aboard was said to have been flying at night during bad weather.
Indeed some argue that age and maintenance contributes to many of the crashes. The Sea Knight that crashed in Kuwait is a Vietnam war-vintage design, but it is still unclear whether or not age contributed to that crash.
Flying anything is risky; flying helicopters in combat is especially so. Training and technology can go a long way to keeping helicopter pilots and crews alive in some pretty tight situations, and choppers must be kept in tip-top shape by maintainers to operate safely. But by the nature of their mission, helicopters expose themselves to enemy fire as a matter of course and fly close to the earth giving pilots little margin for error.
So far we’ve lost five helicopters during Operation Iraqi Freedom. We should not be surprised to lose several more as the war goes on.
Christian Lowe is a staff writer for Army Times Publishing and a contributing writer to The Daily Standard.
