The Russian Mil Mi-26 helicopter is the largest in the world, able to lift up to 20 tons (the same cargo capacity as a Lockheed C-130 transport aircraft) or over 100 passengers. It’s almost as big as a Boeing 737 airliner.
An Mi-26 was coming in to land on the Yamal peninsula in Russia a few days ago when something went wrong.
Looking at the fragments of its massive eight-bladed rotor flying around, I’m glad I wasn’t anywhere nearby! There’s no word on casualties, but it landed tail-down, and the fuselage looks relatively intact, so I hope those inside managed to get away with only minor injuries.
Peter
Ran ought of air.
Vortex Ring State perhaps?
Looks like too steep a landing angle and too hard of a hit. Tail boom broke off from the landing smack.
Big means fragile. It's why a cat can potentially survive a fall from 6 stories, while dropping a lion from up that high will leave a very large splat mark on the ground.
We found out basically the same thing with the Sikorsky Sky Crane. There's a limit to how big rotor craft can safely be designed.
As to the Russkie helo, it is an uncommon but known problem with that craft, since day 1 of operations. I guess they never got around to strengthening the tail boom and giving better shock relief in the landing gear, but all those would take away from cargo capacity.
Looks like settling with power to me, and I was surprised the tail failed under such a mild hit.
I wonder… How many of 'em were built?
How many remain?
It looks like the cockpit was more or less intact. Hopefully everyone got out okay.
Whatever it was, it was an expensive mistake.
Looks like a settle with power and the tail hit 'something'… Hopefully no one was killed!