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A figure which stunned me: Mi-26, the successor to the Mi-6 was involved in the deadliest helicopter crash, after being shot down during the second chechen cam
by circus1540 2y ago
A figure which stunned me:
Mi-26, the successor to the Mi-6 was involved in the deadliest helicopter crash, after being shot down during the second chechen campaign. It was carrying 142 passengers, 127 of which died.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Khankala_Mi-26_crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Khankala_Mi-26_crash
- LVB 2y ago>the helicopter crash-landed in a minefield that made up part of the federal military headquarters' perimeter defenses. Some of the survivors, attempting to abandon the wrecked Mi-26, are reported to have been killed by 'friendly' anti-personnel mine explosions
- Arn_Thor 2y agoAh, Russia/the Soviet Union, land of “but wait, it gets worse”.
- bell-cot 2y agoNot to dismiss either the "shot down", or loss of life - but that does illustrate why very large passenger helicopters are a bad idea. Too many lives at stake, and a helicopter is generally a far more fragile basket than a fixed-wing aircraft.
- __turbobrew__ 2y agoI don’t think that is how probability works. The same amount of people will die to helicopter crashes regardless of the helicopter size.
- Retric 2y agoThat assumes nothing changes over time. Learn from the first accident and the odds of a second accident should reduce.
- ardaoweo 2y agoWell, it should be noted that the helicopter in question was designed to be used by an organization that couldn't care less about loss of life, as we have again seen in recent years. So I guess this aspect of human life wasn't a big concern to the designers, the military can always get new human resources from Siberia or whatever poor part of the country.
- ClumsyPilot 2y agoI object. I think our Media is a great disappointment. We’ve spent 20 years in the Middle East, but the general public didn’t learn anything, The idea of local culture is as uninformed as it was at the start of the war. As a result we will make the same mistake again. The reporting about war in Ukraine is the same - basically a caricature of reality. Sidenote: population of Texas and population of Siberia is about the same. Russia has a cruel culture, but their population is only 1/4 of EU’s. Articles that ask probing questions are only now starting to appear, but are extremely rare. For example: “Russia is producing artillery shells around three times faster than Ukraine's Western allies and for about a quarter of the cost” https://news.sky.com/story/russia-is-producing-artillery-shells-around-three-times-faster-than-ukraines-western-allies-and-for-about-a-quarter-of-the-cost-13143224 https://news.sky.com/story/russia-is-producing-artillery-she...
- nradov 2y agoYes, NATO countries have hollowed out their military-industrial complexes. Everyone is aware now that was a mistake but it will take time to rebuild the industrial capacity necessary to fight wars of attrition. And of course it's cheaper to manufacture artillery shells in Russia since the country has lower wages and is now running a partially mobilized command economy. But once you normalize for quality of the shells, the difference isn't quite as bad as it first looks.
- bell-cot 2y ago> isn't quite as bad That phrase sounds about right. Though my impression is that shell production is still a "meh, I guess we probably should do something..." priority in the great majority of NATO countries.
- loloquwowndueo 2y agoThat thought is not very logical. Very large passenger fixed wings are also a very bad idea and fragile if the premise is someone is shooting at them. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17
- lvspiff 2y agoEven ground based large passenger non-winged transports are a bad idea if someone is shooting at them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kramatorsk_railway_station_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kramatorsk_railway_station_att... overall i prefer any mode of transport that is not being shot at
- medo-bear 2y agoWhat do you know, even sea based large passenger transport is a bad idea if someone is shooting at them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Lusitania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Lusitania Funny anecdote, my first air travel was in an Mi-8 as a 6 year old being airlifted out of a war zone
- _heimdall 2y agoMy grandfather flew in WWII and had many stories of both his planes and those in his group making it back with what mechanics would have thought was catastrophic damage. Shooting down any aircraft with a rocket is likely to take anything down. Planes can handle damage much better from what I understand.
- coolspot 2y agoVideo of the incident: https://youtu.be/JjpXofja1EM?si=E90kSKtGAwFQoUWN https://youtu.be/JjpXofja1EM?si=E90kSKtGAwFQoUWN
- datameta 2y agoIt was heavily overloaded, for the record. But huge machine nonetheless.
- kabes 2y agoI've been in mi-26s a couple of times (friend of mine used to have 3 of them in storage) and up close it's almost unbelievable the thing can fly.