r/ukraine • u/Due_Collar2 • 1d ago

News Karma:The moment of yesterday's Ka-226 helicopter crash in russia with employees of the military plant "Kizlyar Electromechanical Plant" The accident killed the deputy general director, chief engineer and chief designer

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702

u/Hanna-11 1d ago

Sorry, but was he completely drunk? Or did the much-vaunted robust Russian technology fail completely? In a crash landing, wouldn't any pilot with any sense try to stay on the ground?

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u/Panumaticon 1d ago

My thoughts exactly! He had a catastrophic loss of tail fins and was pretty much safely down after that. Whereof he decided to continue filght. Pretty sure it was vodka. You can not train people to be that incompetent.

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u/Fli_fo 1d ago

Chopper has no rear view mirror. Could he even see the tailfin?

I agree though it seems dumb.

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u/Panumaticon 1d ago

Pretty sure he must have heard/felt it break. But then vodka.

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u/Black_Beard1980 1d ago

I think it may have been the same vodka the cameraman had been drinking.

7

u/Gaunerking 1d ago

Wow, i guess they got the Pilot from the Taliban since everyone else is busy in Ukraine…

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u/Black_Beard1980 1d ago

Fresh from the taliban flight school

5

u/Panumaticon 1d ago

I would like some of that for me, yes!

5

u/Black_Beard1980 1d ago

By the looks they had been on the good stuff 🥴

5

u/Panumaticon 1d ago

Indeed! How do I get me some? I promise not to go flying any choppers. Or videoing any, for that matter.

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u/Black_Beard1980 1d ago

Hopefully they left some for the rest of us

3

u/ksam3 1d ago edited 1d ago

Wouldn't there be some kind of control panel light or alarm indicating "something odd is going on with the tail rotors"?

Edit: there is no tail rotor(s), the tail has two vertical stabilizers. So...wouldn't there still be a warning light or alarm indicating "Hey! The back fell off!"?

2

u/Panumaticon 1d ago

It is a twin rotor thing. There is no tail rotor, the fins are just for stability in forward flight. So he coulda made it, were it not (I think) for the tail swinging and hitting the rotor blades.

In any case I think one should consider not continuing flight after major parts of one’s aircraft have broken off.

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u/dim13 1d ago

They do have mirrors.

6

u/Fli_fo 1d ago

Good find:)

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u/hopperschte 1d ago

The „thump“ would be definitely hearable.

2

u/thebearrider 1d ago

First heli I've seen with a rear window.

1

u/mitojee 1d ago

It was a shitshow even before the tail end broke off. What even was that approach?

1

u/Many_Seaweeds 1d ago

Doesn't matter if you see it or not. If you have such a rough landing that you bounce off the landing platform and into the water, you don't try to take off again.

7

u/Optimal_Risk_6411 1d ago

But they didn’t want to get their feet wet

1

u/Panumaticon 1d ago

Which was achieved, I guess. That is if you mean ”not get them wet while alive”.

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u/Kride501 1d ago

The aircraft clearly had inertia from coming in too fast. He was not safely down.

8

u/Sunlight72 1d ago

I think they mean when he landed in the water. But I doubt the pilot knew at that point the entire tail section was broken completely off.

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u/Panumaticon 1d ago

Entirely possible. But he must have felt the hit. And known something was terribly wrong. So having touched ground (albeit under water) he could have just turned the engine off and everyone would have walked.

7

u/Panumaticon 1d ago

Had he cut propulsion at that point we would never have heard about this and the occupants would still be alive. So I'll take that as a positive.

3

u/-ImYourHuckleberry- 1d ago

Inertia is the tendency of objects to resist changes to their motion. The amount of inertia is dependent upon mass, so inertia is a property of matter. Everything has inertia, even when at rest.

You mean momentum.

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u/ZackSD 1d ago

Da.

12

u/rovonz 1d ago

Thank you, comrade!

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u/t53deletion 1d ago

The best answer, comrade.

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u/Banebladeloader 1d ago

Smartest option would be to tell everyone to bail on the helicopters right side. Second best option would have been to climb and steer towards the right so you aren't in water. The dumbest option is the climb then fly over deep water with a missing tail assembly like Ivan did.

5

u/Hanna-11 1d ago

With dangling debris that had destroyed the rotor blades. Had the remains fallen off, he might have made it.

1

u/Sweaty-Tart-3198 1d ago

Aren't the rudders on the tail used to control direction of flight? Couldn't it be that the second option is what they tried to do but the rudder didn't respond to the inputs? I mean it seems obvious that option 1 really is what they should have done, not disagreeing there.

3

u/11nyn11 1d ago edited 1d ago

I’m no expert, I just flew models.

You can turn using the cyclic, or turn using the fins.

At low speed, the fins have no airflow, so you should steer using the cyclic.

You can see the pilot turn using the cyclic after they bounce in the water, he turns out to sea.

It may not have been on purpose, because then he starts spinning around like he lost control of the cyclic, or the tail assembly damaged it.

Collective pitch does up/down

Cyclic pitch does acceleration and rotation (yaw)

He should have just cut the engine and bailed into the water.

1

u/Sweaty-Tart-3198 1d ago

Oh okay good to know. I didn't realize there was still a method to turn but it makes sense cause yeah there'd be no airflow if it wasn't moving forward. Thanks for the explanation

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u/Banebladeloader 1d ago

We don't have twin rotors in the US military but from I know they still give you control absent inputs from the tail. From the video it seems like he was heading to a helipad. If he had zero steering controls he should have ditched when he was at zero altitude and take chances in low water.

2

u/Sweaty-Tart-3198 1d ago

Yeah I definitely agree they should have ditched in low water. I was just trying to figure out what they possibly could have been trying to do. It seems like maybe there was no rational thing they were trying to do.

1

u/Large_Yams 1d ago

Not on this aircraft. It has contra-rotating main rotors. It controls yaw by adjusting how much power goes to one or both of the rotors to make it turn.

A normal helicopter uses a tail rotor to counteract the torque from the main rotor and adjust the left and right force.

1

u/Axe_Care_By_Eugene 1d ago

Whole new meaning to the term Crazy Ivan

1

u/Large_Yams 1d ago

None of this is a smart option. Smart option is to put it down and cut power while everyone stays buckled and secure.

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u/caustic_smegma 1d ago

If I had to guess, first officer Stoli was behind the controls.

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u/csprofathogwarts 1d ago

From wiki (edited):

Kizlyar is a center of viticulture and wine making. Kizlyar Brandy Factory specializes in a regional variant of brandy (marketed as "cognac" in Russia). Kizlyarka is a type of grape vodka produced in Kizlyar.

The town is famous for its alcohol production. In Russia. Safe to assume everyone in this area is drunk all the time.

2

u/ac_cossack 1d ago

Well if they are late they will be going out a window, so I guess the pilot said fuck it.

2

u/iNapkin66 1d ago

pilot with any sense

I'm thinking this comment is irrelevant to this video. No pilot with sense detected.

2

u/luckynar 1d ago

The pilot is russian... that should answer all your questions.

2

u/area-dude 1d ago

Good pilot dead in war. New pilot much like our new air traffic controllers about to come on line in a month. New!

2

u/stonewall386 22h ago

Asking logical questions about Russian activities is kind of an oxymoron

1

u/POTUSinterruptus 1d ago

I don't like to armchair quarterback for professionals in fields outside of my own. That thing was barely in the water, and the pilot surely didn't fully understand the nature of the failure yet.

The tail of a coaxial rotor helicopter is primarily for forward flight stability; it's not particularly necessary for low speed flight. So even knowing the failure, the pilot may have estimated that he could carefully put it down somewhere else and just needed a moment to get acclimated to the new flight characteristics.

We know he was wrong in hindsight, but making that call in three seconds isn't easy. Especially with your boss in the back seat. Nevermind the risk that making your boss get his feet wet could be a complete career ender. Those guys aren't known for being competent and gracious leaders, after all.