Current Affairs Iran

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tsubaki said:
TBF it’s a very strange set of circumstances- you’d have thought the senior people would be on different helicopters, and it’s almost impossible to think the other helicopters (reports say there were two others) wouldn’t have helped when the emergency was declared / they saw it crash. If they couldn’t see it because of the weather it would have been too bad to fly.
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tsubaki said:
Maybe, and certainly (if this is what’s happened) they wouldn’t be the first powerful people who’ve ended up ordering their own deaths by getting pilots to fly in dangerous conditions.

I just find it inconceivable that the other helicopters in the formation wouldn’t have known though; I mean unless it’s so sudden that they’ve exploded in mid air, flown into something or the pilot has gone rogue there would have been a distress call surely.

I don’t have any other explanation mind, as I said earlier if they did know and didn’t try and help when they might have been able to help thats extremely hard to imagine too, they’d be at best banged up for years.

As you say it sounds grim for those aboard, let’s all hope this was a mechanical thing because otherwise it doesn’t bear thinking about.
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Helicopters can and do fly in down to zero visibility assuming they are suitably equipped with the required avionics and the pilot is instrument rated (which I can only assume a government pilot would be). It’s perfectly safe as long as well developed instrument flight rules are followed - maintaining a minimum safe altitude clearance of at least 1000ft above the highest obstacle/terrain within 5 miles of track for enroute flying, and sticking to published instrument departure/approach procedures for the takeoff/landing airfields. Not sticking to these for whatever reason whilst in non visual conditions reduces the margin to safety.

Given their primary operational advantage of being able to takeoff and land away from airports though, helicopters are typically best used as visual flight machines which enables them to do this. The problems arise when visual conditions are so marginal, that the pilot presses on flying low towards obstacles trying to remain in visual contact with the ground. This is the classic “controlled flight into terrain”….Kobe Bryant a recent sad case.

Top spec modern military helis have all kinds of kit such as synthetic vision displays, radar altimeters etc that allow them to fly low in non visual conditions but on an old Iranian Huey this is likely kit they did not have.

If that is what has happened, then there would be little to no chance of a mayday, nor would there be any chance of another aircraft seeing them go in.

Mechanical failure can’t be ruled out either like you say, Iran have struggled to get certified parts due to sanctions for years now. They operate their aircraft mostly with poor quality reverse engineered spare components.
 
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Let's hope it's pure accident and karma has played its hand... If not, potential for this to cause a power vacuum that could create far reaching consequences that are from favourable.
 
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