In Russia’s Chechen Republic, Car’s Dashcam Captured A Helicopter Flying So Low It Almost Hit Cars On Major Highway

May 14, 2017 Aviation Safety / Air Crashes, Helicopters, Russia, Troubled Areas

David Cenciotti

Helicopter Low Level Flying, Chechnya style.

Filmed by a vehicle’s dash camera, the video below shows an Mi-8 Hip helicopter buzzing the cars on the Rostov-Baku highway, near Gudermes in Russia’s Chechen Republic, earlier in May.

As you can see the chopper flew just several meters above a barrier dividing the highway lanes as cars and other vehicles whizzed past.

Besides the risk of distracting drivers, with vehicles traveling on both sides, any failure or bad move could have had devastating effects. Still, this is not the first time we have seen videos of helicopters flying low over public roads and highways. In 2015, a clip emerged of a Mi-17 Hip helicopter buzzing the cars on a highway somewhere near Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine’s fourth largest town, in the central-eastern part of the country. Few months ago, we published a video of an Mi-8 helicopter landing on a highway and blocking a truck convoy to ask directions somewhere in Kazakhstan.

In eastern Europe combat choppers train flying at low altitude using roads for navigation and masking.

So, if you are driving in Russia, Chechnya or Ukraine…beware of low flying helicopters!

H/T Giulio Cristante for the heads-up

Salva

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.

BernardP says:

May 14, 2017 at 3:13 AM

He was lost, so he decided to follow a road.
leroy says:

May 14, 2017 at 7:27 PM

No surprise here. Russian pilots are for the most part undisciplined. We see an example of it here, we see examples of it when they intercept U.S. and NATO – allied – aircraft. I am actually glad they have institutionalized this sort of unprofessional flying (no, it’s not because they are undergoing practical training – it’s flat-hatting). Their lack of self-control, self-restraint would make it that much easier to destroy the RuAF in a war (should they start one. Naturally NATO would never unless provoked by Moscow. Anyone here care to deny that?).
- Black Eagle says:
  
  May 21, 2017 at 1:14 PM
  
  Oh really? Last time when a Su-30 intercepted U.S. P-8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft near Russian borders, Capt. Pamela Kunze spokesperson for U.S. Naval Forces Europe said that the interception was “considered to be safe and professional by the P-8A’s mission commander”.
  Even when Russian pilots sometimes fly unusually close to NATO aircrafts, for now there wasn’t any serious incident and that means they must be well trained because otherwise they could just hardly afford to do such difficult acrobatic maneuvers such as the “barrel roll” over another aircraft.