Helicopter crash on the Hudson

11 April 2025, 02:03

If you stop frame the video, you can see the cabin inverted minus the tail assy and main rotor just before impact. In fact, early on in the video you can zoom in and see the entire main rotor assy seperated from the craft. What a tragedy. An entire family and pilot lost.

https://www.reddit.com/r/aviat...ter_crash/?rdt=37773

11 April 2025, 17:50

Bill/Oregon

Poor glide ratio with the rotor intact; none without it. Can't imagine those few seconds of terror, then fade to black.

12 April 2025, 11:46

eagle27

I see the chopper seemed to do a quite controlled step decent before disintegrating. Looks like mast bumping may have occurred, a condition that can happen with twin bladed rotor machines such as the Robinsons (plenty of them gone down due to mast bumping) and Bell Rangers too.

12 April 2025, 23:18

Bobster

After looking closer at the video above, it appears(to me) the mast and transmission are still attached to the main rotor assy! Could the transmission have seized and the blade inertia ripped the main rotor out of the aircraft, severing the tail boom?

There is now another two videos posted. One shows the craft moving level or in a gradual decent and just coming apart. I'm sure the NTSB will recover the parts and piece the story together.

quote:
Originally posted by eagle27:
I see the chopper seemed to do a quite controlled step decent before disintegrating. Looks like mast bumping may have occurred, a condition that can happen with twin bladed rotor machines such as the Robinsons (plenty of them gone down due to mast bumping) and Bell Rangers too.

14 April 2025, 05:28

f224

quote:
Originally posted by Bobster:
After looking closer at the video above, it appears(to me) the mast and transmission are still attached to the main rotor assy! Could the transmission have seized and the blade inertia ripped the main rotor out of the aircraft, severing the tail boom?

There is now another two videos posted. One shows the craft moving level or in a gradual decent and just coming apart. I'm sure the NTSB will recover the parts and piece the story together.

quote:
Originally posted by eagle27:
I see the chopper seemed to do a quite controlled step decent before disintegrating. Looks like mast bumping may have occurred, a condition that can happen with twin bladed rotor machines such as the Robinsons (plenty of them gone down due to mast bumping) and Bell Rangers too.

It has happened before