where is this written?
"Besides which, military rotorcraft no longer crash: they only suffer 'hard landings.' Which probably reassures Joe Public and the beancounters more than the grunts in the back."
I would love to know the actual source of the above statement. I googled this apache crash and other crashes and found dozens of articles all of which refer to specific incidents and quote from official sources and they all use the term "crash" to describe what happened. I'm certainly willing to be educated. As far as i know the term "hard landing" has specific descriptors to describe an event but not the final outcome. ie. "the aircraft experienced a hard landing which led to the crash." Sometimes a hard landing results only in damage to the landing gear. I wouldn't consider it a crash. Or would you want to describe a fender bender in the parking lot at your local grocery as a crash?
GO