[Vhfcn-l] H-2 Crashes

Mon Aug 19 08:29:46 EDT 2019

Damn, and just by chance you identified a killer problem and kept others from dying just doing their jobs.  I guess the Navy would have given you a serious BZ.  Moe

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Sent: Mon, Aug 19, 2019 5:31 am
Subject: [Vhfcn-l] H-2 Crashes

On Sat, Aug 17, 2019 at 4:30 AM Roger W. Ek <mequest at telplus.net <mailto:mequest at telplus.net>> wrote on the Air Medal facebook Page:

I flew the Hooky Took, UH-2B and UH-2C, before and after HA(L)-3. They were flipping over and crashing while hovering. Nobody was surviving these crashes. An A-4 pilot was losing fuel and hydraulics coming off North Vietnam. He made it out to sea and it finally quit. He ejected OK and was bobbing around in his raft when an H-2 showed up, slowed to a hover, flipped over and crashed, killing all four in the crew. A second H-2 showed up. The A-4 pilot waved him off. He didn't want to fly any more that day. He was picked up by a motor whale boat from a destroyer. From HA(L)-3, Jim Long went to the Naval Safety Center in Norfolk. I went to Pensacola, flying SAR. 

I was walking through the Hangar at Sherman Field and an H-2 was up on jacks for a 100 hour inspection. A hydraulic Jenny was hooked up and the AMH-2 was cycling the landing gear. Then he extended the hoist boom. I yelled "STOP! Don't move ANYTHING!" He said, "What do you mean?" 

I told him to turn off the Jenny; Don't let ANYBODY touch this bird until I find a camera. The hoist was hydraulic and mounted to the transmission deck. The cable went out to the hoist and down to pick up the rescuee. When the crewman pressed down on the hoist, the cable wound off the spool and looped all over the transmission deck. 

The H-2 had flaps on the blades and could be flown with no hydraulics. The rotor mast was hollow and under the transmission was a tiny swash plate or rotating star with tower rods that went up yo the rotor head and controlled the flaps on each blade. The hoist cable had caught on the swash plate. That is what was killing the H-2 crews! I took pictures. The base photographers took pictures. 

I called Jim Long at Norfolk and told him why all the Hooky Tooks were crashing. The pulley at the end of the hoist boom was corroded. it would not turn. The weight at the hook was too light to drag the cable over the stopped pulley. The Navy grounded all H-2s until the hoist booms could be fixed. TINS

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                /<<< \_\_        Roger W. Ek
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