Oops. Australian Army Blackhawk hit a boat in Sydney Harbour
 

Going by the news right now it was a rotor strike against what looks like a mast, haven't been able to find any video online but 9 News is about to "premiere" it in their broadcast.
Lucky it didn't end up worse than an emergency landing, few more inches and it's past a mere touch!

It would be interesting to know what size of vessel they were operating with - this was presumably a fast-roping drill - perhaps the impact of the downwash on the vessel hadn't been anticipated and the boat simply rolled into the helicopter.

Oh well, so much for that theory:) just a case of getting too close too low.

Hovering over a deck below the dominant obstacle (the mast in this case) needs very close attention to lateral separation - in that position it would have been the pilot's responsibility to confirm separation was being maintained since the mast would have been in his hover scan.

Looking at the blade damage reminded of a basic design choice decision that had to be made back in 1972: extend the titanium spar all the way to the tip, or utilize a frangible tip cap. The former design was of course the Bell approach in the UH-1 series. There are arguments for both options and in this case it was decided to go with a frangible ( and swept ) tip cap, opting for the argument that was based on the assumption that nap of the earth flying ( the new “vogue “ at the time ), would result in occasionally hitting tree limbs and it would be simpler to replace tip caps. ( The S-67 project pilot had provided an unplanned demonstration of this necessity while making a marketing movie over at the West Point military reservation, so it was fresh in everyone’s mind ).
In this case, it probably prevented a much more serious result, if one imagines the damage inflicted in hitting the blade spar against a steel mast. There wouldn’t have been the option of putting the ship down ashore. Mind, there are blade balance weights in the tip cap attachment area and bashing the tip cap (s) incurs significant 1/rev and track problems, but the ship will still fly.

Would have thought by now one could have developed a mini `proximity` warning `beeper`embedded in the tips; after all every car has one...

Or just look out the window clearing your rotor tips and being responsible for your machine and not relying on your crewy all the time. EMS crews do this on a routine basis ..lucky indeed

AW/Leonardo have had such a system for a while: Leonardo Helicopter Obstacle Proximity LIDAR System (OPLS) - Aerossurance

Belly Tank - you are right but I think the crewy would have been pretty busy sorting the ropes out post deployment of the troops - definitely the pilots job to keep clear and not drift into the mast.

Video of the incident.

https://www.news.com.au/national/nsw...e31be59692dc1e