Scare over San Diego Bay
Sometime in early May this year I was sitting on my boat in San Diego Bay enjoying a beer. A bright red and black helicopter appeared over the bay near the USS Midway aircraft carrier at a 1000' or so.
Suddenly started spewing heavy black smoke and went straight up, lost speed, fell over and headed straight down while looking quite unstable. With a LOT of black smoke trailing astern.
I had my cell phone in hand and was dialing 911.
At about 400' recovered, quite abruptly with little grace, and commenced a violent climb with all kinds of strange rotations and gyrations. Looked to be clearly out of control. I have seen dozens of aerobatic displays and this one had none of the grace, style, or even sense of control.
... and so on for 10-minutes. Loops of various kinds.
Smoke went off and the helicopter flew away.
There had been no announcements of a flight display nor any festival or special event planned. Never did hear a word about what the display was about.