Spanish Tiger wire strike
 

Military helicopter makes emergency landing after hitting power line

Brestanica, 20 May - A Eurocopter Tiger helicopter hit an overhead power line during the military exercise Adriatic Strike near the Slovenian town of Brestanica in the east in the morning, the Slovenian Armed Forces (SAF) told the STA. The helicopter had to make an emergency landing. Nobody was injured.

Good outcome to a potentially bad accident. The Australians had a couple of wire strikes a few years ago, in the same platform.

It doesn't seem to have any wirestrike protection fitted - lucky boys hitting big wires like that and surviving.

It is painted in camouflage but if you look closely there are wire cutters visible. The top ones anyway.

If it's a valley, there's wires waiting to pluck you out of the sky. You can conduct a thorough map recce, but not all wires are marked on maps (although these look pretty significant), you can do a physical recce if time permits, but if it's the first time down the valley, you need to assume the worst around every bend and adjust your speed and height accordingly. Not sure how far these in cockpit wire detector systems are from being viable, but until then, it's the Mark 1 eyeball. This is a very familiar story.

Yes, it is very small, on closer inspection, compared to other aircraft but it would appear it works!