If you are the most capable and experienced helicopter pilot in the world, flying at 500 feet in any helicopter, and the engine blows and the rotor stops turning, you will die.

In the Kailua crash, some fingers are pointing at the pilot. Mast bumping? I’m not buying it. Straight and level flight in fair weather makes it unlikely.

Did the pilot lose all control of his doomed aircraft, or, after a silent plunge, was that last four seconds of loud grinding and screeching somehow an attempt to avoid houses?

The fingers might be pointing at a hero.

(I am a licensed pilot.)

James Saya

Kailua

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