Aviation experts say piloting Black Hawk helicopters is a complex challenge but army defends training operations
In March 2023, two US army Black Hawk helicopters collided and crashed into a Kentucky farmer’s field after a nighttime evacuation training mission, killing nine service members.during army Black Hawk training missions since 2014 that claimed the lives of 47 service members and in April 2023 helped prompt Pentagon officials to temporarily ground and provide more training to all army aviators not involved in critical missions.
“The military goes by the philosophy that you train as you fight,” McCormick told the Guardian US. This means training exercises take place at all times of day and night and in inclement weather and that military equipment will experience more wear and tear “than it would if you’re flying a civilian helicopter on a tour around Manhattan”.
Wednesday’s fatal flight was the “one that didn’t go right out of all those thousands”, he said. “So it’s a testimony to the great procedures that are there, to the pilots that train there and how they operate on a daily basis. It’s basically a highly choreographed dance with very little room for maneuver.”
But even without them, McCormick said, pilots flying at lower altitudes may have trouble spotting other planes that can get lost in clusters of city lights.the AP reported. The military operates some 2,100 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters made by Sikorsky, a subsidiary of the aerospace and defense company Lockheed Martin. In 2021, the army’s then safety director, Brig Gen Andrew Hilmes, told the Army Times after two army national guard Black Hawks crashed in Idaho and New York that the Black Hawk had a lower “mishap rate” than the less common Chinook and Apache helicopters.
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