Two UH-60 Blackhawks Crash Near Salt Lake City, UT
Two UH-60 Blackhawks Crash Near Salt Lake City, UT
(OP)
This is up the street from my house so I figured I'd post it.
Two blackhawks were on a training exercise on the back side of a ski resort (Snowbird). Not sure exactly what their mission was.
They were in formation coming in for a landing. They appeared to be stationary and descending, maybe 30ft off the deck or so when the trailing blackhawk THROWS ONE OF ITS MAIN ROTOR BLADES INTO THE OTHER BLACKHAWK's TAIL ROTOR. They did not collide. A mechanical failure caused a main rotor blade to detach from the aircraft and the 'loose' rotor blade struck the other aircraft. Needless to say this put both of them on the ground.
No serious injuries are reported. Utah Air National Guard is investigating. Elevation at that spot is right around 9,500'. Weather was cold and clear. Winds appeared to be calm based on the videos.
See the link below for quite a few photos and videos. Pardon the 'source' here, but it has a great timeline. I'll update with more links.
https://unofficialnetworks.com/2022/02/22/breaking-blackhawk-helicopter-crash-reported-in-mineral-basin-snowbird/
Youtube video of crash
Video of crash
Another video - note that this is an instagram story and might not be around for more than 24 hours
News report with some good vids

Two blackhawks were on a training exercise on the back side of a ski resort (Snowbird). Not sure exactly what their mission was.
They were in formation coming in for a landing. They appeared to be stationary and descending, maybe 30ft off the deck or so when the trailing blackhawk THROWS ONE OF ITS MAIN ROTOR BLADES INTO THE OTHER BLACKHAWK's TAIL ROTOR. They did not collide. A mechanical failure caused a main rotor blade to detach from the aircraft and the 'loose' rotor blade struck the other aircraft. Needless to say this put both of them on the ground.
No serious injuries are reported. Utah Air National Guard is investigating. Elevation at that spot is right around 9,500'. Weather was cold and clear. Winds appeared to be calm based on the videos.
See the link below for quite a few photos and videos. Pardon the 'source' here, but it has a great timeline. I'll update with more links.
https://unofficialnetworks.com/2022/02/22/breaking-blackhawk-helicopter-crash-reported-in-mineral-basin-snowbird/
Youtube video of crash
Video of crash
Another video - note that this is an instagram story and might not be around for more than 24 hours
News report with some good vids


RE: Two UH-60 Blackhawks Crash Near Salt Lake City, UT
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: Two UH-60 Blackhawks Crash Near Salt Lake City, UT
spsalso
RE: Two UH-60 Blackhawks Crash Near Salt Lake City, UT
Considering the visibility it seems more likely that a main rotor blade of one 'copter contacted the tail rotor of the other 'copter causing the main rotor blade to be ejected.
RE: Two UH-60 Blackhawks Crash Near Salt Lake City, UT
I think this is the clearest vid. https://twitter.com/i/status/1496222345194876928
A black swan to a turkey is a white swan to the butcher ... and to Boeing.
RE: Two UH-60 Blackhawks Crash Near Salt Lake City, UT
In pretty much all of the videos you can see the trailing chopper's "debris cloud" expanding before you see the leading chopper start to rotate.
Check out 1:28 here. I'm guessing the reporter got this info from the National Guard Lt.? https://youtu.be/-SX-12MaX58?t=89
RE: Two UH-60 Blackhawks Crash Near Salt Lake City, UT
In 1503's video it appears the aft helicopter moved forward while shrouded in snow and the forward helicopter defended in to the other's rotor sweep.
It's too coincidental for this to have happened any other way.
RE: Two UH-60 Blackhawks Crash Near Salt Lake City, UT
This is coming straight from the horse's mouth. Well, the horse's representative's mouth:
Granted it's not clear whether the blade made contact with the ground before being ejected but that seems most likely. Not as exciting as a random blade ejection though...And yes, I agree it seems very improbable that a blade simply flew off, but it is not unprecedented according to 'the internet'.
Here's a tidbit from 'some guy' on instagram: (Unrelated...but I think this is the guy who has been out in the desert near SLC digging out a mineshaft looking for a missing person. I saw the youtube/documentary. Interesting. Very sketchy operation though, getting down into that mine shaft. No thanks.)
So. Sounds like the #2 aircraft got blinded, started drifting, hit the snow with the skid and started to roll (or didnt contact the ground but dipped the rotor into the snow?), rotor blows up and throws debris either directly into #1's tail rotor, or into #1's tail boom, or some other part of #1 which dropped it.
That seems much more likely than an ALL-CAPS blade launch heh..
But I think it's worth mentioning that we'd received some fresh snow up in the canyons the night before this happened. Maybe just a couple inches. It hasn't snowed in quite a while prior to that. I wonder if they were expecting to land on hardpack and got surprised by the snowball. Surely that's not standard operating procedure - to land that close in a snowball? Or a dustball for that matter.
RE: Two UH-60 Blackhawks Crash Near Salt Lake City, UT
Its hardly a engineering failure its perfectly ops normal and expected.
RE: Two UH-60 Blackhawks Crash Near Salt Lake City, UT
More seriously, even if it's not SOP to land in such conditions there should be SOP for dealing with unexpected dust/snow during a landing, and the SOP should be such that it's possible to react to such obscuring elements when unexpectedly encountered. If that's not already the case, this crash makes a very good argument that it should be. If it *is* the case, then hopefully the investigation will find out what failed & adjustments will prevent future crashes like this.
RE: Two UH-60 Blackhawks Crash Near Salt Lake City, UT
RE: Two UH-60 Blackhawks Crash Near Salt Lake City, UT
To note the aircraft is utterly brilliant for crashing unlike most mechanical palm trees
RE: Two UH-60 Blackhawks Crash Near Salt Lake City, UT
A black swan to a turkey is a white swan to the butcher ... and to Boeing.
RE: Two UH-60 Blackhawks Crash Near Salt Lake City, UT
RE: Two UH-60 Blackhawks Crash Near Salt Lake City, UT
A black swan to a turkey is a white swan to the butcher ... and to Boeing.
RE: Two UH-60 Blackhawks Crash Near Salt Lake City, UT
They should be landing into wind so if the rear lands the first still has vision and then first continues forward so no chance of getting rear ended.
RE: Two UH-60 Blackhawks Crash Near Salt Lake City, UT
Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.
RE: Two UH-60 Blackhawks Crash Near Salt Lake City, UT
Hindsight and all being what it is.
A black swan to a turkey is a white swan to the butcher ... and to Boeing.