At least three dead in crash of U.S. military helicopter in eastern Sicily

APNewsAlert | July 16, 2003

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APNewsAlert

ROME (AP) -- At least three dead in crash of U.S. military helicopter in eastern Sicily, Italian firefighters say.

Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved

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[Chief_Airframer]

Not that I'll ever have the oppurtunity, but I would never want to go up in a CIVILIAN helicopter!

Rich (Military helicopter technician)

[neb52]

I use to work for Eurocopter USA in Grand Prairie, TX. The company has had only two crashes since 1979. Most crashes occurr after it is sold to the customer, because most of the customer can't afford to maintain their fleet properly. When one crashes and the investigative team went to the site, to see if Eurocopter might be found at fault, would find that the part that malfunction was a part that we sent several notices for the customer to bring the helicopter in for the parts to be recertified for airworthiness or replaced. Either that or the crashes was due to flying into a mountain or bad weather. I got to go up in one of the new EC120 that Eurocopter markets for the police departments. It was kind of scary since the body of the helicopter was made of fiberglass and shook like an earthquake. Its pretty scary when the middle console that houses the controls and instruments shakes violently, too. :P

[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

More often than not autorotations are not successful. However, Travis McGee is an Osprey basher who slams the aircraft over the autorotation issue. When pressed for answers he refuses to give them.

[HM12AMCM]

While looking for information pertaining to the MH-53E Sea Dragon which crashed in Sigonella, Sicily I ran across your comment about auto-rotations. During a 22-year military career which consisted of 16 years of being a aircrewman in various military helicopters: UH-2A/B/C/D,H-3G/H and RH-53D I never experienced any failed auto-rotations unless you want to count when a pilot forgot to put the landing gear down? Of course there have been some failed auto-rotations I'm sure but I doubt if most failed.