I work on those for the Navy. I got chills all over when I saw that bird hit the water. Just because the incident was filed as a class "c" mishap and maximum cost is $500,000 means nothing. That bird is going to be the black sheep of that squadron from here on out. Its going to have problems until its painted and put on a stick somewhere.
Nefarious,
My birds are the sister to the Romeo, the Sierra is made for low level drops. Our pilots will get as low as a few feet off the water to drop our rescue swimmers. But the rotor wash will quickly suck up water and dump it into the cabin and engines like a giant vacuum. Our birds will hover for a few seconds a few feet off the water then climb to about 50 feet to let the engines stabilize and the water in the cabin to run out. Then a crewmen will lift the swimmer out with the rescue hoist. Even when the birds shut down and land, we have to remove the deck plates and remove gallons of water from inside of the bird. And I would put money on the fact that those pilots are not trained for low level altitudes above water being a HM squadron, or in the extent that Sierra pilots are.
This could have ended a lot worse. When it comes down to it, its still a bunch of 20ish year old kids, like myself, playing with million dollar equipment and thinking were invincible.
