Lost Navy SEALS Helo.....Wot really happened??

[back end o' the bus]

Any ideas what could have happened to the lost helo....

Rumours so far:-

1 Technical problem....mmmm chances during a fast roping SF Op.....remote

2 Stalled.....well, guess that would be pilot error (with an SF crew?)
Shouldn't happen I reckon....

3 Heavy landing....interesting! might just tie in with a stall, 'specially if they were all pumped up, gung ho.....and American!!

I'm not a rotary bod but this is a rumour network, so thought I would ask the question....within the bounds of Opsec...obviously

Cheers guys....an gals:ok:

[Max Contingency]

I would say its likely that the pilots just got over excited, didn't notice the falling airspeed and stalled without sufficient height to pull up and recover.

However, I do know that the Flux Capacitor on that particular type of helicopter has been prone to a lot of technical failure so we shouldn't rule out that as a cause.

I guess we will all just have to wait and see what the accident report says when they publish it on the internet.

:cool::hmm:

[StopStart]

:rolleyes:

I'm not a rotary bod but....

No Sherl ****lock.

[Hedge36]

Oh, dear god... :ugh:

[Joker's Wild]

Might we have any data available on type of helo and elevation the op took place?

JW

[SASless]

Heavy landing....interesting! might just tie in with a stall, 'specially if they were all pumped up, gung ho.....and American!!



"Gung Ho".....ssshhhhhhhh! No one is supposed to known the USMC First Raider Battalion was re-established from WWII for this operation.:oh:

Penis Envy is such a sad thing to see in supposedly mature males in uniform!:rolleyes:

[denlopviper]

blackhawk, elevation about 4000 feet

my guess is that it was a shoot down. the chopper is in pretty bad shape. and yeah some of the crew were injured and one civilian on the ground was killed when the chopper came down.

[airborne_artist]

A Blackhawk shot down from 4000' and no fatalities amongst those on board? Somehow I doubt it.

[muppetofthenorth]

The 4000' would be ASL, not AGL, shirley?

[denlopviper]

the elevation of the target area is 4000 feet. they were probably flying low level.

as far as i know. the crew was injured.

here is one of the first pics that came out

http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/2289/helicopterosama543.jpg

[Joker's Wild]

Without knowing the OAT and associated DA, one can't really say, but the little I know about the H-60 and its variants would suggest the crash was probably not performance related.

Anyone else with better data?

JW

[RUCAWO]

Son Tay Raiders style due to the size of the compound?

[denlopviper]

i am guessing OAT to be between 15 and 20 degrees C. could have been a bit lower than that too

[AussieNick]

that photo is deceiving, as the assault team destroyed the chopper when they realized that it was not going to be flying outta there. All crew transferred to backup blackhawk

[BOAC]

How did they get it to land in that screened off area?

[Pontius Navigator]

Tripped over the fence?

:E

Temp was 19 deg dropping to 16 deg by 0400.

[MATELO]

I reckon it would depend on the colour of the helicopter. Green ones are more likely to crash than black ones.

[dead_pan]

Heavy landing....interesting! might just tie in with a stall, 'specially if they were all pumped up, gung ho.....and American!!

I wonder if it had anything to do with the fact that Obama and his team were watching the mission on live feed? It must have been quite off-putting having the boss watching you over your shoulder.

Wasn't there a thread recently which featured a video of a Blackhawk almost colliding with the uprushing earth? I recall the Pprune BoI attributed that particular near-miss to over-zealous pilotry.

[zondaracer]

It looks like an SH-60 tail. To the OP, having worked with the 160th SOAR and being a member of Air Force rescue, working with HH-60s, I resent the statement in your theory number 3. Pumped up and gung ho maybe, but not sure what being American has todo with it.

[zondaracer]

At this point, the public doesn't know if it crashed or not. What we do know is that it was blown up, per standard procedures for unrecoverable sensitive equipment.

[Tashengurt]

I tend to think that the way the tail's draped over a wall would indicate that it landed near vertically with some force. That's not to say that it crashed, of course.

On another note, was it definately some form of Blackhawk? It just doesn't look terribly Blackhawky to me. Although I'd be the first to admit I'm not used to seeing them embedded in the brickwork!

[[email protected]]

Would love to hear the explanation from those armchair experts of exactly how to stall a blackhawk:ugh:

Also basic groundschool used to cover the difference between elevation and height:{

[forget]

Why does this thread remind me of the jungle based Bell 47 that wouldn't start so the engineer called base on HF.

"Pete the pilot says it's because there's water in the carb. I say it's because there's a main rotor blade stuck in the river bank".

[davejb]

In an attempt at keeping all the conspiracy threads in lock step....

...Sharkey did it.

[southerncanuck]

what type of blackhawk is shown in the pictures from the mail. is it a blackhawk, are the pictures even real?

Osama bin Laden dead: Photo of Obama watching the Al Qaeda leader die on live TV | Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1382859/Osama-bin-Laden-dead-Photo-Obama-watching-Al-Qaeda-leader-die-live-TV.html)

[Tashengurt]

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/05/03/article-1382859-0BE1F64C00000578-384_470x423.jpg


????

[Lonewolf_50]

For Tashengurt:

The tail is looks pretty S-70 (Blackhawk/Seahawk) as I see it. (Flew both). You are looking at the forward edge of the "vertical stab" and the two "horizontal stabs" but the TRGB looks to be an utter mess.

I refer to the picture in this post. Not sure what your picture is of.

http://www.pprune.org/military-aircrew/450492-lost-navy-seals-helo-wot-really-

Perhaps the TRGB failed? Got hit by ground fire? Hard to say.

[Tashengurt]

I can't find any Blackhawk variant that has a tail rotor like that?

[ElectricWhale]

First reports said they "ran out if air".
Helicopters don't "stall" in the conventional sense.
Could have been something called "settling with power" where the free air flow into the top of the rotor disk is replaced with descending air from the rotor downwash. This descending air is re-ingested during a high rate vertical descent and causes loss of lift due to a change of the angle of attack of the relative air that the rotor blades "see".
This analysis is based upon a twenty year old memory of a tricky-to-understand aerodynamic concept. Please correct or polish as necessary.
The photos we are seeing here are of the aircraft AFTER the US team intentionally blew it up so any photo analysis by us "experts" will probably be wrong.

Regardless, outstanding job by an incredible team under extremely difficult circumstances.

EW

[Hedge36]

There's a Robinson joke in here somewhere... I can smell it... :oh:

[BOAC]

so any photo analysis by us "experts" will probably be wrong. - come on now - this is PPrune!

[ShyTorque]

The helicopter probably isn't dead at all but has flown off to a cave.

;)

[Bubblewindow]

That's a weird looking tail rotor all right!!
Looks like the inner of a Fenestron?
Did they bring the Commanche back to life :confused:

BW

[TheWestCoast]

If the pictures on the Daily Mail website are legit, and that's an S-70 variant, it's a heavily modified S-70. Appears to be some kind of fairing at the tail, a 5 blade tail rotor, with a fairing over the tail rotor hub. The horizontal stabilators are canted backwards, and there's no rivets visible. I suspect the USG will be making every attempt to get all those pieces back before the Chinese show up.

[VinRouge]

Some form of hushkit?

[What Traffic]

EDIT: Sorry, I took too long to post, didn't mean to rehash some of the same stuff.

The more I look at the photos of the helicopter bits, the curiouser and curiouser the nature of the aircraft becomes. The H stabilator has a pronounced sweep. The tail rotor looks to be 5 bladed, equal spacing, with a large center disk as observed previously. The portion of the tail boom that appears to lack significant visible damage seems to have a pretty dramatically different profile. 160th in the past has played around with quiet tail rotors and various interesting changes to their aircraft, so I wouldn't be surprised if this was a variant of something that previously has not been seen. Then again, after an exhaustive battery of tests I have been certified an idiot by several medical authorities and I'm working off of a couple grainy pictures of broken parts, so who's to say what's really going on. For all I know they blew it in place and left some extra bits around to send various foreign intelligence services into a tizzy.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/josh10524/bl5_1303597a.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/josh10524/02_05_2011--682-_1303385a.jpg

I would be most interested to see what someone with more knowledge than me (just about everybody) thinks.

[Tailspin Turtle]

The "pie plate" over the tail rotor hub, gear box cover shape, pointed aft end, horizontal stabilizer sweep (forward or has it just rotated around the pivot point?), and the silvery paint suggest stealth treatment. The fin appears to be shorter as well. It looks to me that he came in a bit short and hit the tail boom on the wall. With hover antitorque thrust coming in, the tail boom would have been under a lot of stress and broken off with too much encouragement. Note that the bit outside the wall is to the left of the forward part of the tail boom and rolled upside down, which is where the tail rotor thrust would take it.

[Ewan Whosearmy]

Not sure it's just a hush kit that you can see.

The paint and shape of the tail components also point to RCS reduction measures.

Makes you wonder what the rest of it looked like.

Ah! TailSpin beat me to it!

[tuj]

Does anyone know if the helo's were detected by Pakistani radar? It has been said they were detected, but not clear on how. I didn't think you could really make a helo stealth given those rotor blades on top. :confused:

[dead_pan]

Any pics of the cab anywhere, or was this blown to kingdom come?

The 'tail-fan' seems too insubstantial for a Blackhawk, to my untrained eye.

[Just This Once...]

I've no idea why it crashed.

Anyway these photos will be a good teaching aid for those interested in how many random wires you can get strung across one of these compounds.

[Boy_From_Brazil]

An off the wall thought....is it a similar type to what the Pakistani military fly?

[Tiger Tales]

It's (was) Airwolf! :ok:

[Tashengurt]

Ooooh! Knew it wasn't a bloody Blackhawk!

[parabellum]

In one of the pictures of the compound they show a power pylon quite close, I imagine there were quite a few wires around but equally I imagine they have onboard kit to detect that sort of thing. Are the demolition charges, sans primer, in place before the Op starts, I wonder?

[500N]

"In one of the pictures of the compound they show a power pylon quite close, I imagine there were quite a few wires around but equally I imagine they have onboard kit to detect that sort of thing. Are the demolition charges, sans primer, in place before the Op starts, I wonder?"


They knew every inch of the compound and surrounding area before they went in as would be expected.


"Are the demolition charges, sans primer, in place before the Op starts, I wonder?""

As in carried on board for use on taking down the Pylons by Raid people or placed beforehand by others on the ground ?

[0497]

A little too aggressive with the SF insertion

On land
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsDSvcEDCgg

[parabellum]

Sorry, I meant the charges that are used to destroy the helicopter, after it has crashed.

[500N]

"Sorry, I meant the charges that are used to destroy the helicopter, after it has crashed."

Depending on what was used, nothing dangerous about taking explosive charges on MILITARY aircraft as long as the det is kept well away as well as protecting them from being hit hard by accident and the rules are followed.

[0497]

Pakistani tv footage showed a raging fire in the compound. Daytime photos showed black smoke marks on the perimeter walls but no explosive scars..

So probably incendiary charges.

[Buster Hyman]

I wont believe it was destroyed until I see the insurance claim!

***

This was fun reading! :p

Bin Laden and the SEAL's secret stealth helicopter (http://chadmumm.com/post/5171536733/bin-laden-and-the-seals-secret-stealth-helicopter)

[Heliringer]

The team would probably have used White Phosphorus grenades to destroy the Helicopter.

[forget]

Don't shoot the messenger but 'An IT consultant taking a break from the rat-race by hiding in the mountains with his laptops' says it all happened on the 1st of May. Read from the bottom up. Note the date. Anyone explain?

Twitter (http://twitter.com/#!/reallyvirtual)

ReallyVirtual Sohaib Athar
A huge window shaking bang here in Abbottabad Cantt. (Cantonment ?) I hope its not the start of something nasty :-S
1 May

ReallyVirtual Sohaib Athar
Go away helicopter - before I take out my giant swatter :-/
1 May

ReallyVirtual Sohaib Athar
Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event).
1 May

[adr]

This was fun reading!

Bin Laden and the SEAL's secret stealth helicopter
Yeah, but how did the author know about that field behind my house? :ooh:

adr

[Allanneil]

someone should look at the current reuters news site, the wreckage is more uncovered. looks oddly like a drone??

[ralphmalph]

The team would probably have used White Phosphorus grenades to destroy the Helicopter.

Love it.

White Phos...the universal explosive capable of destroying an aircraft. Or B!

[beachbunny]

I would say there's a very good chance it was Power Settling, if they were hovering fairly low, inside a high walled complex. The walls would prevent the downwash from dispersing, causing more than normal to rise around the helicopter, and then create a downward vortex in which he was trying to hover. Reports said "He appeared to lose lift".
The very scenario I was taught to avoid.

[back end o' the bus]

I feel we are nearer the truth......its out there!!

Now all that we need to do is get that damn photo....sort out the conspiracy over the moon landings and JFK....then all in the world will be OK.....apart from JPA of course..

Any other comments from our Rotary bretheren?????:ok:

[TheWizard]

I think we can categorically say that it didn't 'stall' if that helps!!

[27mm]

From Aviation safety.net:

A Pakistani army helicopter was feared shot down in northern Pakistan early Monday morning, causing at least one dead and two injured, local media reported.
According to local Urdu TV channel Geo, the incident took place at about 1:20 a.m. local time in a hilly area of Abbotabad, a small town lying some 60 kilometers north of the country's capital city Islamabad.
The report quoted eyewitnesses as saying that heavy firings were heard before the helicopter fell down. It is not known how many people were aboard the plane which is reportedly capable of carrying eight to 10 persons.
One local Urdu TV channel Ary reported that at least one person was killed and another two were injured in the crash.
Rescue team has rushed to the site shortly after the crash was reported.

Any connection??:cool:

[Tourist]

baechbunny

I'm pretty sure that "settling with power" is what the US calls vortex ring.
What you are talking about there is recirculation, something totally different, and I have to say not what I reckon is likely in this scenario.

[bakseetblatherer]

I have got my tin foil hat on for this thread. It has four pages but no matter what I click (even manually putting the URL for page four in) I get sent to page 3! Obviously some super secret info on page 4 the 'THEY' don't want us to know....

... or the forum code is a bit stuffed.

[back end o' the bus]

Ps Could it have blown a SEAL???!!!

They can't touch you for that!! I'll get my jacket:ugh:

[forget]

YouTube - PENGUIN BLEW A SEAL Video

[beachbunny]

Been a while since I was in that arena, but yes, vortex ring is the other term I couldn't remember. I thought though that "recirculation" as you call it would be the same thing, causes such as steep descent, downwind approach, etc etc.
Recovery, nose down a little, try to run forward out of it, Oh sh... there's a wall in front of me! Very feasible.
Of course, as always, there's other things that could have the same end result.

[500N]

"I have got my tin foil hat on for this thread. It has four pages but no matter what I click (even manually putting the URL for page four in) I get sent to page 3! Obviously some super secret info on page 4 the 'THEY' don't want us to know....

... or the forum code is a bit stuffed."

It happens on quite a few threads when it gets to the max number of posts, it seems to create the net page even though nothing has been posted on it.


Re SF pushing the boundaries, it is all a calculated risk / reward and to an outsider it appears dangerous but because SF tend to have been there or close to it before, they are better at making risky judgement calls.

[wokkamate]

Its a Stealth Hawk......:cool:

Why the crash? Overcooked the approach, too high nose up and stuck the tail in the wall. They have done it before and will do it again. Most of the time the tail doesn't come off though!

That said, awesome bunch of blokes, balls the size of footballs (British not American) and a job well done. Who cares about one little heli, they have hundreds.......

:ok:

[Lonewolf_50]

Who cares about one little heli, they have hundreds.......

Well, if it is the alleged super secret stealth Black Hawk, they don't have hundreds ... losing one would be quite bothersome to the Special Ops Command. :sad:

[RileyDove]

Bearing in mind Pakistan has had 20 BN in U.S aid since 2001 and currently wants more I think its a pretty safe bet that the remains of this machine is back in U.S hands already.

[Lonewolf_50]

I hope you are right, but given the public discomfort that Pakistani government has expressed over this raid into their territory, one cannot be too sure. :cool:

[blkhwk_64]

blade strike
tail strike
wires
powerloss due to recirculation
powerloss due to temp, altitude and load
uneven surface
blade damage due to recirculation (sucking :mad: thru blades in confined area)
error during roping
hard landing
nerves
shot down

considering this was the SOAR and SealTeam6 who do nothing else but this type of thing only last option sounds reasonable.

the rest i can not imagine having been overlooked by these kinda guys during the planning stage. further they had ample opportunity to practise this setup under the exact same conditions at the replica they build for exactly this purpose.

what makes most sense thru is that this poor helicopter was never intended to get outa there in the first place. leaves a nice unmistakable footprint and NO doubt as who or what.

imagine what the silly press and folks would make out of this without the dead heli at that site.

this was a great job done (finally) and well planned (down to the dealing with the press and the mob) :}

RIP helicopter.

[teeteringhead]

...... or in the words of the SH Songbook ........ ...and the Navy's on the fence in the morning!"

[Uncle Ginsters]

Perhaps the explosives intended to destroy the helicopter after the crash went off a bit early? :8

Or, as mentioned above, it was always intended to be a sacrificial one-way asset - i'd say that OBL was worth it to the US.

[Evalu8ter]

It wouldn't been the first SF raid where a cab was "sacrificed". The Son Tay raid envisaged sacrificing the first cab in as the LS was too small for it - it was deemed more important to get the assault team close to the objective. I believe that Eagle Claw would have struggled to bring all the helos back too.

However, my bet is still tail strike on the compound wall.....

[Monty77]

Tail rotor strike on the compound wall as he overcooked it on the way in.

Some of you may recall the two tailwheel holes in the wriggly tin wall at Dungannon. OC 72 and STANO. Libellous in this day and age, but I was FLANG (Flight Lieutenants Against Non-Graduates) as opposed to FOLA, a bunch of virgins who couldn't read or write. Or fly very well come to think of it. Hat on.

Looks to me like he left the tail rotor on the outside of the compound while he (or she, obviously) enjoyed a relatively short and low speed crash to where the fun was. Epic entrance.

I've never heard a super stealthy helicopter, especially when there's four of you and two of you are Chinooks and it's in the wee small hours.

[Evalu8ter]

Monty,
"I've never heard a super stealthy helicopter"

That's the whole point! There could be one outside now.........:}

[high spirits]

My money is on vortex ring or tailstrike. Recirc should be taken into consideration in the planning. If it has not been considered, that is baguette et buerre... Recirc should not necessarily be an issue when hovering higher above the wall whilst roping.

[parabellum]

One of the reports here in Australia has suggested he suffered mechanical problems, possibly caused by gunfire from the roof, with the resultant landing being the best he could hope for, rather than any pilot error.

[Tourist]

You know, people do just **** up. Even super special sf aircrew screw up just as often as everybody else because they are doing things closer to the limits than everybody else.
Chances are it was a combination of the possibilities, mixed with a bit of miscalculation and nerves thrown in. Doesn't matter how many sf missions you have done, invading a sovereign country to take down public enemy no1 and become famous (within the comunity) is goiing to cause some jitters.

[Really annoyed]

You know, people do just **** up

Oh come on tourist, this is pprune. Everybody has to analyse, criticise and say how much better they could have carried out the operation. We are only on page 4 of this thread. It needs to go on for at least another 6 pages.:rolleyes:

[racedo]

Well, if it is the alleged super secret stealth Black Hawk, they don't have hundreds ... losing one would be quite bothersome to the Special Ops Command. :sad:

Maybe, Maybe not but can just imagine the requisition order going through when it hits someone's desk who ask WTF did you do with the last one, no response just a "we lost it" and stamps NO. :p

[FlightPathOBN]

"The helicopters, called “Stealth Hawks,” are inconspicuous machines concealing cutting-edge technology. They entered the compound as planned, with “Razor 1″ disembarking its team of SEALs on the roof of the compound — not on the ground level. There was no crash landing. That wouldn’t occur until after bin Laden was dead."


"...But Obama’s announcement, he said, “rendered moot all of the intelligence that was gathered from the nexus of al-Qaida. The computer drives, the hard drives, the videocasettes, the CDs, the thumb drives, everything. Before that could even be looked through, the political decision was made to take credit for the operation.”..."

Correcting the (http://news.yahoo.com/correcting-fairy-tale-seal-account-osama-bin-laden-054233289.html)

[Mmmmnice]

I blame it all on the foreigners, or was it the goblins? Either way it couldn't be anything the crew did wrong - get with the programme guys.........

[J52]

At least the outcome this time was better than the failed Iran hostage rescue and mission was accomplished. Realistically no military will engage in such an operation without knowing the possibility of losses.