Dave, how close to you was this?...

[Truckman]

Helicopter crashed in backyard of Pennsylvania home...

Police and fire crews responded to the scene and found the aircraft had gone down in the fenced yard of the home. Two people on board the helicopter died, but the man in the home was uninjured.

The homeowner probably didn't get much sleep last night......Ben

[Dave Grubb]

That is about 90 minutes west of me.

I wonder how high they were when the problem started

[Truckman]

I wonder how high they were when the problem started

That's probably something the FAA investigation will turn up...Not all helicopters have flight recorders......Ben

[Dave Grubb]

I'm not surprised that not all have flight recorders. Are private aircraft of any kind required to have recorders?

I have a lot of hours in various shapes and sizes, beginning with the army. My former neighbor (he is dead now) had a helicopter that he used as his daily "driver", and since we did a lot of jobs together I often rode to job sites with him. He was an excellent pilot albeit reckless at times. One of his more widely known adventures was putting one down in an abandoned limestone (cement) quarry that was full of water. He was high enough for it to go into auto-rotation and he had enough control left to be able to tilt it over as they hit the water---thus stopping the rotor and allowing them to get out safely.

The only real issue is that he lost the copter and his wife over that one-----his "girl friend" was with him at the time. Now the girl friend is my neighbor---and he did not die in a crash he suffered a heart attack.

[Truckman]

One of my customers, a building contractor, owned and flew his own chopper...He was called on to do a lot of rescue work on Lake Conroe as a volunteer with the county's Emergency Management team...I recall him being enroute to a boat rescue carrying another customer who was a diver on the team when the rotor somehow came in contact with the lake surface...The helicopter went over into the water, but the Constable's Lake Patrol who were standing by recovered everyone safely...I never did learn the cause of the accident (I suspect overbalancing one side with a load), but following the FAA investigation he salvaged and rebuilt the helicopter and restored it to service...To my knowledge he still participates in rescues......Ben

[Phillbo]

I've flown in 3 but only landed in 2

[Truckman]

I've flown in 3 but only landed in 2

A record no other candidate can match......Ben

[Phillbo]

I've been up in a hot air balloon twice and never landed in either of those as well... Have you seen those things land... a person could get hurt in one of them.

[CactusCurt]

I'm not surprised that not all have flight recorders. Are private aircraft of any kind required to have recorders?.

I can't say for sure, but as I remember it from the old King Air days some of the safety features and devices were required if you flew passangers commercially (or possibly some cargo like dead bodies) Avoidance stuff like T-CAS or whatever its called was beginning to become sorta standard when I last knew five or six years ago.

[CactusCurt]

I've been up in a hot air balloon twice and never landed in either of those as well... Have you seen those things land... a person could get hurt in one of them.

I know two people who have been injured (broken bones) in hot air balloon "landings".