I don't have any rotary-wing qualifications, but I am a recently retired professional pilot, with 40-plus years in military (including flying instruction) and civilian aviation (light twin charter and airline transport). However, I did spend several years operating closely with, and taking rides with, military rotary operators, so I feel I have some understanding of the operating environment. I consider myself an 'interested observer' on this thread, and hope you will accept my observations as such.
As soon as I saw the Google Maps satellite, and aeronautical chart, images posted by Gordy (post #7 ), I was struck by the proximity of the last part of the R44 route to the mast/tower.
I assume the route is extracted from one of the popular flight following websites, so I accept that altitude accuracy, particularly at low level like this, can be called into question. The granularity of the R44's route is also limited, but that is a factor of the time interval between positions recorded. Nevertheless, GPS postion recording is pretty good these days, so I think it is fair to treat the limited individual positions recorded as likely to be accurate.
The penultimate recorded position appears alarmingly close to the mast. The apparent crash site is then about 900 feet/275 metres from the mast position. The mast itself is promulgated as being 294 feet tall (311 feet amsl).
The illustrated track of the R44 follows the Ronald Reagan Highway very closely and, intially at least, may even be parallel and immediately north of the highway. The track then crosses to the south side of the highway (as a response to the proximity of the mast?), followed by some lengthy turns, and then heads north over the highway. As I have already mentioned, the penultimate recorded position appears very close to the mast, after which it quickly ends at the apparent crash site.
Was the R44 low enough to strike the mast, or the mast's securing cables, and continue airborne for a short while before crashing nearby? We don't yet know.
The post by wrench1 (#15) links to an FAA website which briefly states "AIRCRAFT TAIL ROTOR STRUCK A TREE AND CRASHED INVERTED IN A FIELD ...". You will have seen that the apparent crash site is located in a woodland area, and there are several wide open fields to the north, so did the R44 actually end up in the fields just north of the woodland? There don't appear to have been any photos of the crash site yet, so unsure on that point.
Perhaps the tree it struck is one of the very many close to the northern edge of the wooded area, and the R44 ended it's flight very shortly thereafter, in one of those fields? I somehow doubt the accident site would be reported as "inverted in a field" if the R44 had come to rest within the woodland. Perhaps the R44 had become too low for it's track to be further recorded, after it passed just north of the mast?
If it was one of the trees to the north of the mast which was struck by the tail rotor, then to be that low, at night, that close to the mast (assuming the crew were already aware of the mast), suggests things were not going at all well. The R44 could have been on it's way earthwards for several reasons - collision with the mast; engine failure; disorientation - but I just know the mast itself looms large in my mind. The feeling in my bones is that any tail rotor strike with a tree is possibly a follow-on to some other primary problem, which then brought them to an altitude low enough to strike a tree.
In any event, a tragic incident, and only time will tell what happened here. The paragraphs above are just me 'thinking aloud' on this one.
Last edited by Stuart Sutcliffe; 29th Mar 2023 at 12:56.
Reason: Spelling; attempt at improving clarity of one paragraph.