When a helicopter has an accident happens, who are you going to call?

That be me. It was one of those additional Add On jobs LTC Gerald E Lethcoe add to my plate.

There were a total of three helicopter accidents and 1 U-21 accidents that I was tasked to take pictures of. None were fatal and two were so humorous they way they happened that I'd like to go into some detail about them.

Let me get the least two interesting ones out of the way.

AH-1Q TOW Cobra

While returning from a training exercise, the group of helicopters experienced an almost white out 
condition due to an isolated snow storm that they encountered. One of the AH-1Q TOW Cobras settled down on what the pilot thought was solid ground.

When the pilot in command rolled off the power to the blades, the helicopter rolled sharply to its left side, the blades hit the ground and were completely destroyed. The Cobra was a total loss.

Please bear in mind that these images are almost 40 years old.

The other incident involved an OH-58 when the pilot was flying using nap of the earth tactics came up to a high point in the terrain pulled pitch and flew right into a high power line. While the blades stayed on the helicopter their were terribly damaged and the only thing keeping the entire transmission and rotor section was the bolt on the 5 mount.

The first most memorable incident occurred while I was taking images for my Drowning Is Dumb article for EurArmy Magazine.

Apparently, two pilots -- both CW4s -- were doing touch and goes on our Harvey Barracks 8000 foot long runway while flying a U-21 aircraft. One feathered one of the engines to stimulate a engine failure. The other elected to land the aircraft as the wheels began to retract. For 1900 feet -- I know this because I had to take pictures where the tips of the propellers nicked the surface of the runway and counted the distance.

The plane eventually came to a stop in the grassy part of the runway, in tact with more ego bruised than the aircraft itself. After I took the images around the aircraft and inside, the plane was moved to the outside of the hanger, the engines were removed and replaced and the plane was flown from Harvey Barracks back to Heidelberg.

This one involved a friend of mine by the name of Captain Harry Patterson and it occurred down in Stuttgart during REFORGER 77. Apparently, Captain finally convinced our operations Master Sergeant that helicopters were safe to fly in. 

Well, as it turned out, the fuel filter got clogged up and caused the engine to fail.

If you've been in Germany, you know that the streets in the small towns are very narrow. And Captain Paterson almost pulled off a beautiful Hail Mary landing. I say almost because there was a street light in the way.  Upon hitting the pole, the main rotor blades removed themselves from the helicopter, hit the corner of home and ended up in the back yard of the owner's home.

Here's where it gets funny. Still dazed from the landing but safe -- so was the Master Sergeant, I should add -- Captain Patterson found himself in a bear hug from the owner of the home thanking him for not crashing into his home.

I still get a chuckle out of that. And we had to actually drive into town to take the images of the downed helicopter. Once the images were developed and in the right official hands, we were given permission to remove the helicopter from the street and that was the end of the incident.