It is January 26, 2015, and I am now two years helicopter-crash-free.  I told the story here shortly after it happened: https://backwoodshome.com/blogs/MassadAyoob/2013/01/27/dont-be-afraid-of-flying/.

I would like to thank the many people who added poignant and sometimes funny comments at the end of that blog entry. It’s worth reading. I love you people.

Two years later, all three of us who were on board are doing fine. Graham Harward, the pilot who “brought us home alive,” is still flying as far as I know. John Strayer still has some range of movement issues with his gun hand, seriously injured when it went through the shattered Plexiglas when we hit, but is nonetheless still winning pistol matches. I’ve only got one visible scar from it. We were indeed lucky.

Share in our “celebration of survival.” The song written and sung by our friend Steve Denney, “Porkchopper Blues,” overlays the first three and a half minutes of the video, some of the flight film having been edited for brevity.  If you hear hysterical laughter in the background, it’s us survivors and the women in our lives and some good friends: we’re hearing it for the first time on the recording, as you are now.

When the overlaid music stops, it’s your warning that things are about to get serious.

John Strayer, on the port side of the bird, was wearing a Go-Pro camera which recorded the short, fun flight, and the no-fun-at-all crash.  Sorry for the engine sound. You won’t hear us talking on board the aircraft; we had radio mics and headphones for that which didn’t pick up our conversation over the engine noise. In the seconds before the crash, you won’t hear me say to Graham, “Those trees are getting’ kinda tall, bro,” nor will you hear him say “I don’t like this—I don’t like this at all.”

Since I have a mechanical IQ of about 50, I didn’t hear the engine sputtering with the muffs on…but John and Graham did, and thanks to the Go-Pro, so will you.  Some folks asked why we didn’t just auto-rotate into a hard but safe landing when the engine failed and we lost altitude. It’s kinda hard to auto-rotate when you don’t have rotors, and as you’ll see in the video, the rotors were gone in the first fraction of a second when they hit the treetops.  Notice how quickly things proceed from there.  “Gravity sucks”…fast.

Click here for video if you can’t see it on your screen.

Among other things, we learned a firearms safety lesson on that short, ill-fated flight in which several guns were on board, one drawn and in hand during the incident, but no shots were fired. If you’ve taken one of my classes between then and now, you’ve heard me discuss it in the opening firearms safety lecture. If you haven’t, it will be the topic of the next blog entry here.

26 COMMENTS

  3. Believe I mentioned in a previous Blog here on your website, that I once worked with a retired Army Helicopter Instructor Pilot, who firmly believed that the Hueys he flew every day were the only aircraft he knew of that “Sat on the ramp all night, plotting how to kill the first pilot who tried to fly them in the morning”.

    Well, even though your bird wasn’t a Huey, welcome to the Club of Survivors who has learned, first hand, “Why Helicopters were never meant to fly”.

  4. So glad all turned out well and Ya’ll are still running and gunning.
    Cudos to Steve for a very entertaining diddy of your adventures that day.
    Love the song and Ya’ll are never to set foot in a helo again…

  5. 15 years ago my Alaska bush-pilot friends warned me against carburetor icing. They would only fly planes with fuel injection. A veteran helo pilot friend told me that he liked whirlybirds because they could hover all day in a 60-knot wind. I know that he lost one helo, though, to wind issues too close to a cliff, with a USAF veteran pilot at the controls, no less.

    Good you walked away OK from a mishap. There must be some nice firewood left at the site from the rotor blade action. Meets criteria for a dead-stick landing, for sure. The odds seem highly in your favor for accident-free aviation henceforth, though. I like Super-Cub bush flights out of Eagle, AK, in good weather. The flights to Mt. Denali out of Talkeetna are terrific, too. Mid-to-late July is usually the best time.

  6. Now that there video and song was funny. Don’t care who you are. The big question was did your underwear have to be changed or was there just skid marks in them?

  7. Being a very “mature” Marine aviator, I used to fly helicopters so old that they actually had a Carb Air Temp gauge. I never experienced carburetor icing in either South VietNam, Southern California or Florida, therefore it must not exist. The pilot did no wrong. The NTSB is therefore incorrect and this must all be a conspiracy by the Brady bunch, abetted by the current administration. Thankfully, despite the predilection of all of those nefarious gun grabbing groups (and you know who you are), nobody got dead during this adventure. Better luck next time.

  8. Mas – I spent too much time in choppers to laugh, except in a “nervous” way, when I looked back. When I first read your account of this incident, I was still not laughing because of your very real brush with death. Then, I listened to “Porkchopper Blues.” Now, I’m laughing ’cause Steve Denney is hilarious! You have always connected real life events to educational purposes, and this one is no exception. John Strayer’s trigger guard discipline during this accident should be in textbooks.
    As Linda stated, everyone is “so glad all turned out well.” May I add to “running and gunning” – please keep writing and teaching?

  9. Great video! I can’t say the same for the music though. Ride of the Valkyries would have been a good choice.
    I am a great believer in fate. I guess your guy’s time just wasn’t up. Must be all that clean liven. Carburetor icing in FL seems hard to swallow but you do get some cool weather down there.
    I had a long talk a few years ago with a teacher at our local junior college that taught airplane mechanics. He flew Marine 2 for the Nixon admin. He had a lot of stories and I specifically asked about auto rotation. He said that it was difficult to do under the best of circumstances. It was part of getting your pilots license but that you didn’t follow through completely as it was too hard on the air frames. It would seem to me that to successfully perform the maneuver you would have to have altitude to give yourself time to react and forward speed to keep the rotor turning as that is how a gyro-copter flies. (the rotor is not powered).
    I have had helio excursion rides 3 times: Over Mount Rushmore, Branson, MO and Niagara Falls, the Falls were probably the most exciting. Nothing like crashing though.
    A few years ago the wife and I went on a sea cruise to Alaska. I had always wanted to try a float plane ride. We signed up for an excursion for what was called Misty Fjords. The plane was a single engine turbo-prop, which I liked because I thought it was more reliable than a radial piston engine, it seated about 12 people. Anyway after we got out into the boonies we were in a constant mist or cloud. We could not see the ground, just the tops of the mountains. I was able to peek into the cockpit as it just had a curtain across. The pilot had a computer screen that showed the outline of the coast and the cursor looked like a small airplane; I assume that the computer was linked to a GPS receiver and was constantly plotting our location. After awhile we began to descend and eventually broke through the clouds and an inland lake was beneath us. We landed and taxied up to the shore, where there was a small water fall. The pilot shut off the engine, opened the hatch and asked if anyone wanted to step out. I thought he was joking as there was no dock. One intrepid guy decided to take him up on the offer and did step out onto the pontoon that the plane floats on. He was holding onto to the strut. I was just beginning to think maybe I would try it when a wave came along and soaked him right up to the family jewels. That water was icy cold and the guy didn’t waste any time getting back inside. Anyway, we obviously made it back and I got some good video. I have bored you with this story because a week later, safe and sound, I saw on the news that one of these planes on a Misty Fjords excursion trip had crashed into the side of a mountain and all were killed.
    Like I said, I believe in fate. If your time is up, it’s up. Watch the movie Final Destination.

  12. Was it really two years ago? Well, proof positive that if you can walk away from it, then it’s a good landing. 🙂

    And one gun related question; in the original report you mentioned that it’s “usually” done with AR-15 rifles. Ever have a failure to stop a hog with 5.56mm?

    Either way, stay safe Mas.

  14. Fruitbat, I’m not the one to ask about 5.56mm effectiveness on hogs because I never shot a hog with one.

    Reader comment invited!

  17. Never shot a feral hog with a .223, but have with a 30-30. Can’t speak for Florida hogs, but those here in the Ozarks have the equivalent of armor plating on their front shoulders forward that has stopped even 30/06’s from penetrating much over 3-4 inches. I highly doubt that any soft nosed or hollow point 5.56 would penetrate more than 2 inches. Don’t shoot unless broadside and just behind the front shoulder. Those who have dressed one out know what I’m talking about. It’s not unusual to find several slugs in healed up wounds on these critters (none making it to the vitals). They are so damaging to the environment (and potentially dangerous), the Game and Fish Commission in our state encourages folks to shoot them on sight and do not require they be recovered, even on public land. Lot of them shot, few fatally sadly.

    This advice may not hold true for 1st. or 2nd. generation feral hogs, but does apply to those that are true ferals that have reverted back to ancestral genetics.

  18. Glad y’all are all okay and can now look back and laugh. Not everyone is so lucky and thankfully y’all all survived. Re the hogs, anything over about 150 lbs, 5.56 is NOT enough gun in my opinion. I’ve hit larger and had to have a friend with an M14 finish it off.

  19. Glad you all are well and pretty much healed.
    I do have to say, that first sentence is possibly the best lede ever.
    “…helicopter crash-free…”

  20. The only thing worse than crashing in a helicopter is jumping out of a perfectly good airplane with a parachute.
    Really glad you got out of that thing in one piece .
    Great song .

  21. Mas, congratulations on the anniversary of your “successful landing”. I enjoy your blog and articles too much for you to get yourself killed. As to AR15’s and hogs, I’ll take the AR15 as opposed to crawling through the brush with a knife. Since TPWD classifies them as “destructive” and “non-game” animals the ethics of hunting them is a bit different than whitetails in most people’s minds. Logic given for using AR’s are penetration and hydrostatic shock along with low recoil and quick followup on multiple hogs. As for me, I shot one with a .223 (1-12 twist) using a 52 grain hollowpoint match bullet and the bullet bounced of the hog. The hog looked at me like I was “stoopid” and walked away. That was a fortuitous shot at a porker in our camp and I was satisfied with him leaving.

  24. Tommy Sewall, in some situations, we need what works, not what is “customary” or “reasonable”, thus the wisdom of the Founding Fathers, “….. shall not be infringed”. It should be our decision. Just saying. But, then, I’m a knuckle dragging neanderthal.

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