What Happens When a US Crew Gets Trapped Inside Sinking Helicopter

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Fluktus channel. Rigorous maintenance schedules and pre-flight checklists ensure the safety of the aircrews and passengers. Unfortunately, there are times when helicopters crash, and therefore, the crews need to know how to escape. Igor Sikorsky started the evolution of military helicopters in 1939 with his VS-300. Helicopters are now used for close air support with gunships, search and rescue operations, vertical replenishment at sea, and the transportation of soldiers and cargo. While overland missions include combat search and rescue in hazardous areas, medical evacuation, and special operations insertions, maritime operations include anti-submarine warfare, and more. Weather, technical issues, or combat damage are the main causes of military helicopter crashes. Proper flotation equipment and crew training improve aircrew survival odds over water. According to statistics, if flotation devices deploy properly, survival in water crashes is about 80 percent. There are wide variations in land crashes. Open terrain offers better chances of survival, whereas metropolitan locations prove to be the most hazardous. Helicopter recovery operations require specialized equipment and meticulous planning. Rescue operations may be postponed for hours or even days due to weather, location, and water conditions. Every operation is different, because salvage personnel have to coordinate with heavy lift cranes or retrieval vessels, secure the wreckage, and attach lifting equipment. And in an operation like this, the Coast Guard is responsible for making sure that the waterways are basically safe and navigable. We have a role in that, and we have the equipment in order to keep the harbor clear. We work very closely with the police department because they have the dive team that goes down and actually rigs sunken objects such as helicopters and airplanes so that we can safely lift them from the water. One of the most difficult survival situations that military personnel encounter is escaping a submerged helicopter. As practiced at a diving and salvage training center, a helicopter ditching at sea is simulated by the facility's helicopter underwater escape trainer. The simulated helicopter cabin can rotate and dive inside a specially designed pool, simulating actual crash conditions. While strapped into their seats, trainees learn vital survival skills such as locating emergency exits, releasing safety harnesses, identifying reference points, and bracing for impact, all while upside down underwater. The golden minute, the crucial window of time during which personnel must flee before cold or drowning becomes life-threatening, is emphasized in training. Emergency evacuation protocols and the correct use of emergency breathing apparatuses are taught by instructors. Personnel are prepared for a variety of emergency situations via a variety of scenarios, such as rough water and night weather. We're underwater and I've got my black goggles on. I couldn't find my straps, my buckles. I didn't know where everyone was in relation to me. I couldn't feel where my my window was or my exit point was, so I just stopped. I tilted my head back and I just breathed for one second until I got my bearing and then I was able to find it. I just redid the motions in my head and I found it immediately. After this training, I have a baseline understanding of these are the things that you may need to do in this situation. One of the most difficult components of battle readiness is military water survival training. Remember what they say, slow is smooth and smooth is fast. To simulate actual emergency circumstances in hostile waters, personnel must endure demanding scenarios. Training starts with fundamental swimming skills and progresses to more challenging situations. Wearing full battle gear, including guns and body armor, service members learn how to survive. They learn how to manage equipment loads that could pull them under, deal with cold water shock, and stay afloat in choppy waters. Survival scenarios such as handling wounded teammates, handling tainted water, and avoiding enemy forces in the water are all part of advanced training. Students gain skills in making makeshift flotation devices, calling for help, and surviving for lengthy periods in open water. The most difficult exercises incorporate a variety of stressors, such as equipment failures, harsh water conditions, simulated injuries, and darkness. In actual circumstances where terror can be just as lethal as the water itself, this develops psychological fortitude and muscle memory. Feels like a tremendous amount of water going up your nose. It's about as realistic as we can get to simulating what it would actually feel like to get pulled through the water at a couple miles an hour behind a parachute. So like anything else, when you're getting pulled through the water, it's a little bit shocking at first, but it's great training. Airmen's survival skills come into play as they bob in the ocean waves. As they continue to hold the help position, the flavor of salt water blends with the metallic tang of adrenaline. As waves roar around their shoulders, their life preservers keep them aloft. They've been trained to save energy for years. While they wait for the distinctive thud of rescue helicopter rotors, the bright orange smoke signal burns out slowly. Every minute seems longer because of the sea's continual motion. The patience is essential. The distinct sound of rotor blades approaching is finally audible. A large orange plume dances in the rotor wash above them as they pull the activation cord for the smoke signal. Through the fog, the helicopter emerges, getting bigger as it gets closer. The rescue swimmer plunges into the surrounding water, and now the hoisting procedure lies ahead. On land, it's a different story. Exercises with a downed helicopter mimic the mayhem and immediacy of real crash situations. These exercises imitate enemy fire and mechanical problems as aircrew rehearse emergency procedures. A mayday call usually starts the scenario, which is followed by a mock forced landing. As soon as they are down, survivors must quickly secure their position, evaluate any injuries, and use satellite devices or emergency radios to communicate. They have to try to avoid enemy forces as they go to extraction locations. While the survivors use GPS coordinates obtained through encrypted channels, ground personnel rehearse search patterns. The activity combines classic survival skills with contemporary technologies. Survivors must correctly identify their location using certain available resources. Security procedures are emphasized in the training. Even friendly soldiers handle survivors cautiously until their identities are confirmed. From the first impact to the last extraction, this attention to detail develops muscle memory, which is extremely helpful in real-world situations when stress impairs judgment. If I go down in theater, I want to know how to operate the equipment and how to correctly get rescued. Good training. At military airfields, aircraft rescue and firefighting simulations are an essential part of emergency response training. To always ensure preparedness, teams rehearse quick reactions to a range of aircraft emergencies, from hard landings to full-scale accidents. The correct placement of emergency vehicles, the appropriate use of firefighting equipment, and safe approaches to damaged aircraft are the main objectives of these rigorous drills. Responders must become proficient in spotting procedures to stay out of risk zones and still be able to perform efficiently. Teams rehearse engine shutdown procedures, smoke extraction techniques, and the quick removal of injured individuals. These exercises, which include progressively more difficult scenarios, are conducted several times a week. Crew members develop the ability to remain intense without becoming tense, which helps them make quick decisions under duress. In situations where seconds can make the difference between life and death, continuous drilling produces automatic reactions. Today we did a simulated on the MV-22 with nine solos on board. Basically what we did was respond and do proper spotting, so we're out of the danger areas of the aircraft. We pulled our hand line to use any agent if there's any fire, shut down the aircraft to get ventilation going to get all the smoke out, and then rescue the patients. Without craft crew, we couldn't man an airfield. Nobody could fly aircraft or anything like that. If a bird were to go down and we weren't there, people would die. Lives are at stake. When a ship is attacked on water, the whole scenario changes. The initial impact of enemy weaponry on a naval vessel might have disastrous consequences. Gaping holes are left above and below the waterline by missiles piercing the hull. As seawater rushes in, several compartments flood quickly, damaging electrical systems and bursting fuel lines, which immediately pose a fire risk. Entire compartments can be destroyed by high explosive warheads, which also destroy critical systems and cause crew members to be killed or injured. Far from the impact point, the blast wave causes secondary damage as it passes through ventilation ducts and passageways. Flooding swiftly spreads between decks due to cable passages and burst pipes. When electrical equipment is exposed to seawater, critical systems malfunction. Flooding adds weight to the ship, making it difficult to move and possibly causing it to capsize. Parts of the ship may become dark if the power and communication systems are taken out. The Navy's top damage control trainer, the USS Buttercup, replicates the kind of flooding that sailors would experience in real-world situations. Teams must battle flowing water in dimly lit areas while trying to salvage their spacecraft in these tough circumstances created by the facility. In order to replicate the real ocean temperatures they could experience in locations like the Mediterranean, students must endure freezing water gushing through broken bulkheads and burst pipes. Their ability to stay focused throughout this cold water exposure is tested. While their bodies struggle to cope with the tough environment, applying shorelines to weaker structures, mending holes, fixing broken pipelines, and running dewatering equipment are all tasks that teams must handle concurrently. The scenarios intensify to include aerial flooding, which replicates the flow of sea water across several decks. In warfare, soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines are trained to be efficient, but losses and casualties will happen. When aircraft end up in the water or ships are attacked, the crew and passengers must know how to escape. If an aircraft crashes, emergency response teams must know how to save lives. All of this requires constant quality training. That's the end of this video. I hope you enjoyed it. Make sure to subscribe to this channel so you don't miss any of our new content. See you next time!