Video: inside view of military helicopter crash in Bosnia

On Feb. 10, 2012, at 10:45LT a Bosnia and Herzegovina Armed Forces helicopter Mil Mi-8TV-1, crashed near the village of Bukovica Kalinovik, 40 kilometers south of Sarajevo, during a humanitarian mission to deliver food, medicines and fuel.

Someone was filming from inside as the helicopter approached the ground (for landing?). Suddenly something happens (01:57 of the footage below) and the chopper starts rotating out of control.

Bad weather was reported as a possible root cause of the crash even if the video doesn’t seem to show poor visibility, rain or particularly strong winds.

Fortunately all 11 people who were on board escaped the helicopter uninjured.

About David Cenciotti
David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.

6 Comments

  1. Bad weather component as a possible cause of the accident could be the wind, visible in the second part of the footage, after the crash, blowing over the snow on the ground.

  2. You can see at 1:49 how snow starts to be blown at the ruined house visible through the left side of the open door. Also the video obviously skips at least a couple of seconds worth between 1:56 and 1:57. That doesn’t have to mean something has been cut away though, the camera might not have coped well if suddenly shaked as the helicopter started spinning. Could a sudden, strong gust of wind from behind play havoc with the rotor aerodynamics and cause something like this?

    Anyway, everyone walked away from the landing so that makes it a good one.

  3. Mi-8 crashed into other village than the it was supposed to deliver help. This was humanitarian operation of help to mountain villages blocked due to severe snow storm, and the village where the Mi-8 crashed was down the mountain, much lower.

    Strong winds (80-120 kph) are “first” to blame, but also problem with tail rotor also is option, especially since the outside temperature was -15°C

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