MH-60M crash off Okinawa

[chopper2004]

Speedy recovery to the injured,

http://theaviationist.com/2015/08/12/160th-soar-mh-60m-covered-crash/

[malabo]

Furious spin doctoring by U.S. military media relations to paint it as a "hard landing". A hard landing implies the aircraft is on the intended landing surface. The helideck on that ship is about 100 meters away from where the wreckage is laying, and you can see the gap in the railing where the tail rotor sawed through. chopper2004 quite correctly called it a crash. High sensitivities between the Japanese and the U.S. military on Okinawa, so expect some posturing.

[Tourist]

Malabo

Nobody misses the helideck by 100m because of a crash. For whatever reason, they were above an area of the deck and then suddenly landed. They are upright. Hardly a "crash". Hard landings have a habit of chopping off tails. Can't see any reason whatsoever for posturing about this incident, but I await with interest.

[Lonewolf_50]

The bottom picture from 2004's link shows that the tail broke just behind the tailwheel/tail landing gear. Over on the tail section, you see the tail rotor drive shaft (the one attached to the intermediate gear box) sticking out ... interesting failure mode.