Catastrophic failure could have led to Black Hawk crash

Hawaii’s 25th Combat Aviation Brigade, which lost a Black Hawk helicopter off Kaena Point on Tuesday night with five crew, routinely practices emergency egress and water retrieval training for a crash at sea.

The first thing that happens with a water landing is that a top-heavy helicopter rolls over and starts to sink, disorienting passengers inside.

However, the 25th Infantry Division said Wednesday it was not aware of a mayday call for help being made, raising the possibility that the crash occurred as a result of a catastrophic failure.

Such a failure occurred on a Jan. 19, 2012, night mission in southern Afghanistan, when an aging Marine Corps CH-53D Sea Stallion’s main rotor and a portion of the gearbox completely detached from the helicopter midair, sending it plummeting to the ground. The crew of six with Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 363, the Lucky Red Lions out of Kaneohe Bay, was killed.

Investigations will be mounted to determine the cause of Tuesday’s crash, but the 25th Division emphasized it was still very much in search-and-rescue mode.

“We are here to bring our soldiers home to their families,” division spokesman Lt. Col. Curt Kellogg said at an afternoon news conference at Haleiwa Harbor.

It remains to be determined if the two pilots were wearing night vision goggles, which was a factor in the Jan. 14, 2016, collision of two Marine Corps CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters off the North Shore in which all 12 Marines were killed. The soldiers missing from Tuesday’s crash in waters 500 to 600 feet deep — which is too deep for Navy divers to operate — are all with the 2nd Battalion, 25th Aviation Regiment. The Black Hawk also had three aircrew aboard.

Hawaii has experienced its share of military helicopter crashes, but relatively few serious ones on Oahu have involved the Black Hawk, which maker Sikorsky said over the past 35 years “has fought its way in and out of countless combat zones to deliver and extract troops, save lives as a medevac or casualty evacuation platform (and) provide critical supplies to troops.”

More than 3,000 Black Hawks of all types are in service worldwide, with the U.S. Army being the biggest operator, with 2,300 UH-60 designated aircraft, Sikorsky said.

The 25th Division said it has 38 Black Hawks, 16 AH-64 Apaches and eight CH-47 twin-rotor Chinooks in the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade in Hawaii.

On Feb. 12, 2001, two Army Black Hawks performing a night training mission in Kahuku — one with a Humvee slung under it — collided and crashed, killing six soldiers and injuring 11 others. The direct cause was the “failure of the pilot” to keep his distance from the other Black Hawk involved.

Other Hawaii accidents point to a variety of aircraft and circumstances, including:

>> On Sept. 4, 2008, all four Coast Guard crew members were killed when an HH-65 Dolphin helicopter crashed into the sea before reaching Oahu’s southern shore. The chopper suffered a “catastrophic loss of airworthiness” after a hoist cable snagged on a boat during training and severe rocking caused the rotors to hit the hoist boom. The crew attempted to fly the damaged helicopter to shore.

>> On May 27, 2009, two Army pilots at Wheeler Army Airfield were killed in a failed autorotation test in a OH-58D Kiowa Warrior. Pilot error was cited.

>> On March 29, 2011, a Marine Corps CH-53D crashed at the Kaneohe Bay sandbar, killing two Marines, in what was determined to be “catastrophic mechanical failure.”

>> On May 17, 2015, a tilt-rotor Osprey crashed at Bellows in severe brownout conditions, killing two Marines. An investigation said the pilots could have picked an alternative landing spot.

>> The investigation into the Jan. 14, 2016, collision of two Marine Corps CH-53Es off the North Shore faulted the pilots, but also found they were getting inadequate flight time, resulting in two of the pilots not being “adequately proficient” in the use of night vision goggles.

A 2010 Army-produced news story by the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade noted the crash egress training conducted in a helicopter “dunker” simulator in a swimming pool at the Kaneohe Bay Marine Corps base.

“Escaping from a submerged helicopter while upside down, wearing battle gear and restrained by a seat belt with a multipoint harness can be difficult,” the story said. “Given the amount of time the 25th Combat Aviation brigade flies and trains over water, it’s a scenario for which its helicopter pilots and air crews must be thoroughly prepared.”

At a U.S. House Armed Services Committee hearing in March of 2016, Chairman U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry raised concern about increasing Army and Marine Corps aviation accident rates. Both services said decreases in funding, training and maintenance were to blame.