A Mi-28N Havoc gunship has crashed in Russia during an airshow.
A Russian Mi-28N Night Hunter helicopter crashed during Aviamix airshow at Ryazan airbase, southeast of Moscow, Russia.
The gunship was taking part in an aerial display with other 3 (or 5 according to some sources) Mi-28s when it started to spin and steeply fall towards the ground until it crashed and caught fire. According to the first reports, one of the crew members has died, while the other one was severely injured.
David Cenciotti is a freelance 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 four books.
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6 Comments
I can’t help but think he really just didn’t know how to correct from the aerodynamic conundrum he put himself in. I suppose a mechanical malfunction is possible, but it looks like he didn’t realize that gaining airspeed and the subsequent escape from settling with power would have likely saved his life. Airflow over his vertical stabilizer would have finally allowed his tail rotor to become effective, but instead, he fell through his own vortices from an altitude at which losing an engine at an OGE hover wouldn’t even be catastrophic. It’s too bad that one was injured and one killed, but should have been an easy (enough) fix.
Video removed by user
Great… The video has been removed; it can be found everywhere on the net but here. The Co pilot survived but the pilot died on impact. Did even read the article.
A pilot from the world-famous ‘Berkuts’ aerobatic display team was
killed after their Mi-28N helicopter crashed during a performance at the
Aviadarts 2015 show, Sunday. Two pilots were in the helicopter at the
time of the incident. The deceased pilot reportedly struggled to save
the machine.
The crash was reportedly caused by a firework
stunt that led the back rotor of the helicopter to stop turning. The
aircraft then fell to the ground and caught fire.
At the time of
the crash, 3,000 spectators were in attendance. The crash occurred
around 2km (1.2m) from the stands in which the audience were sat, but as
a precautionary measure, all were evacuated from the show.
Check out 0:15 in the RT video… look at the anti-torque rotor, it’s barely moving. If I had to guess I’d say the aircraft developed a problem with the tail rotor and the pilot was unable to recover.
That was my conclusion. Looks like an internal Wire or Throttle Control Cable might have snapped. However the AT Rotor starts up again but too late to make a difference.
I can’t help but think he really just didn’t know how to correct from the aerodynamic conundrum he put himself in. I suppose a mechanical malfunction is possible, but it looks like he didn’t realize that gaining airspeed and the subsequent escape from settling with power would have likely saved his life. Airflow over his vertical stabilizer would have finally allowed his tail rotor to become effective, but instead, he fell through his own vortices from an altitude at which losing an engine at an OGE hover wouldn’t even be catastrophic. It’s too bad that one was injured and one killed, but should have been an easy (enough) fix.
Video removed by user
Great… The video has been removed; it can be found everywhere on the net but here. The Co pilot survived but the pilot died on impact. Did even read the article.
A pilot from the world-famous ‘Berkuts’ aerobatic display team was
killed after their Mi-28N helicopter crashed during a performance at the
Aviadarts 2015 show, Sunday. Two pilots were in the helicopter at the
time of the incident. The deceased pilot reportedly struggled to save
the machine.
The crash was reportedly caused by a firework
stunt that led the back rotor of the helicopter to stop turning. The
aircraft then fell to the ground and caught fire.
At the time of
the crash, 3,000 spectators were in attendance. The crash occurred
around 2km (1.2m) from the stands in which the audience were sat, but as
a precautionary measure, all were evacuated from the show.
Check out 0:15 in the RT video… look at the anti-torque rotor, it’s barely moving. If I had to guess I’d say the aircraft developed a problem with the tail rotor and the pilot was unable to recover.
That was my conclusion. Looks like an internal Wire or Throttle Control Cable might have snapped. However the AT Rotor starts up again but too late to make a difference.