I think they actually encountered an aeroelastic mode peculiar to helis close to the ground. I wish I could think of the name of it.

Basically, every helicopter out there on every pad out there is thinking about doing this at any time, and it's the pilot's job to know what to do when it happens. (Up the rpm and feather the blades, I think.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex_ring_state

Maybe. It seems like there was another one that caused a feedback loop that could plausibly have been like what was shown in the video.

It's called ground resonance. It's a condition unique to helicopters with fully articulated main rotors ,which basically means that the rotor system is hinged in a such a way that along with being able to flap and feather the blades can also swing forward and back to compensate for various aerodynamic forces during flight, basically so the helicopter doesn't just up and flip the fuck over for no reason. You get into ground resonance when you come to set the helicopter back on the ground, if you land a little to hard the impact will jar the rotors out of sync, making one side of the rotor disc heavier than the other, what with having more blades on that side that, in turn, will basically teeter-totter the fuselage into little pieces as the disc spins around at hundreds of revolutions per minute.

The funny thing is that there's a retardedly simple fix. All you have to do is pull the helicopter back up into the air and the blades will figure out where they need to be all on their own, then you can attempt the landing again with a lighter touch. I really hate to make light of any injuries/fatalities in this instance (not to mention the loss of a multi-million dollar piece of equipment) but this pilot is straight incompetent. There are several explanations for how he could have gotten into this situation, but all of them stem from either extremely poor planning or baldfaced incompetence.

Ah, flight school, the most expensive thing I've never used.

Also, hello everybody, I've enjoyed this site for years but never really had anything to say till now. So thank you for all the entertaining videos and conversation over the years, you guys are hilarious.

Really, all it needed were stencil buffers.

These are yours.

Genexicon, transfooooooaaaaaaaaaawn... fuck it.

Yes

*****

For Memedumpster

My stars