Two Navy helicopters from North Island Naval Air Station were damaged, and their pilots are now grounded, after some bizarre flying over Lake Tahoe last week.
A Navy spokesman confirmed Thursday that a video posted on YouTube is genuine footage of two MH-60 Romeo helicopters from North Island’s Helicopter Maritime Strike 41 squadron.
The video shows the $33 million helicopters flying low over the lake. One seems to lose control, spinning and crashing into the water. The pilot then regains control and pulls the craft back into the air.
The Navy wouldn’t identify the pilots or say whether the helicopters were supposed to be hovering over Lake Tahoe, only saying that the entire Sept. 13 flight is under investigation.
The pilots are not flying until the Navy wraps up an aviation mishap board investigation, said Lt. Aaron Kakiel, spokesman for the Naval Air Forces command at North Island.
Lake Tahoe is not a normal training area for Navy pilots, he said.
The pilots could face administrative action — and even lose their flying qualifications — depending on the outcome of the investigation.
Though the YouTube video only catches one crashing, both helicopters hit the water because they didn’t have sufficient power to hold their hovering positions, Kakiel said.
The damage suffered by the two aircraft is estimated at between $50,000 and $500,000. They had to land at Lake Tahoe Airport to be repaired.
Watching the video made retired Navy jet pilot Steve Diamond think the helicopter crew may have had a legitimate reason to be hovering over Lake Tahoe.
Somebody out hotdogging probably wouldn’t do it in view of another aircrew, or over a popular tourist destination, said Diamond, who retired in 2002.
“Somebody has to be a total moron to do it in total view of tourists and in a recreational area, when everyone has a camera these days. We don’t really have morons flying naval aircraft,” he said.
“It’s possible they were troubleshooting a problem; you don’t know,” Diamond said. “It’s easy to make a snap judgment, but there are other possibilities.”
A different set of pilots flew the aircraft home, Kakiel said. HSM-41, which trains new pilots, dispatched another crew on a commercial flight to fly the helicopters back Sept. 16.
The MH-60 Romeo is the Navy’s newest helicopter and is considered state of the art. Its usual missions take it over the open ocean for anti-ship and anti-submarine warfare.
The MH-60s were flying home from Mather Air Force Base near
Sacramento where they had taken part in an air show. Needing to refuel, the pilots were headed to Lemoore Naval Air Station when the incident happened.
A typical crew for the MH-60 Romeo is a pilot, co-pilot and crewman.