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" One service member was killed, and eight injured, when a Black Hawk helicopter crashed into a naval vessel off the coast of Virginia on Thursday, October 22. The accident occurred during a joint Army-Navy exercise, as personnel were rappelling from the transport chopper onto the deck of the USNS Arctic, a type of fast combat support ship that&amp;#039;s typically used as a stand-in for merchant vessels during training maneuvers. Another Army helicopter involved in the exercise ferried the injured service members to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. The official account of the incident is vague\u2014at a press conference the following morning, Rear Admiral Mark H. Buzby described the training run as a &amp;quot;routine search and seizure exercise,&amp;quot; and confirmed that the Black Hawk struck the mast of the USNS Arctic, and that Naval Special Warfare personnel were part of the exercise. Weather conditions may or may not have been a factor, and the names and affiliations of the injured and dead have been withheld. The Navy, Army, and the Naval Special Warfare Command\u2014part of the multi-branch Special Operations Forces\u2014have all declined to comment further, pending a full investigation. What is clear, however, is that the term &amp;quot;routine&amp;quot; demands context. The Coast Guard conducts routine boarding actions on a regular basis, announcing their presence to a suspicious vessel before coming aboard. The circumstances of last night&amp;#039;s training exercise were a different kind of routine\u2014the personnel fast-roping onto the USNS Arctic&amp;#039;s deck were Navy SEALS, and the Black Hawks were most likely operated by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, nicknamed the Night Stalkers, for their frequent nighttime missions. The Army has not confirmed the unit&amp;#039;s involvement in the exercise, but the pilots of the 160th, based out of Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, are frequent collaborators with SEALS (both units fall under the Special Operations Command), and are considered among the best-trained pilots in the Army. According to Black Hawk pilot and aviation safety consultant Keith Cianfrani, this type of maneuver is extremely uncommon for Army chopper pilots. &amp;quot;Most Army units don&amp;#039;t even have this as a task they train under,&amp;quot; Cianfrani says. &amp;quot;The Night Stalkers are the experts at it. But they have accidents, too.&amp;quot; Although the factors contributing to the accident have yet to be determined, Cianfrani, who served as a Lt. Colonel in the US Army, and has worked as an accident investigator on crashes involving the 160th, doesn&amp;#039;t believe the pilots were out of their league. &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t think it&amp;#039;s a skill-based error. Those pilots are highly trained. They apply for that unit, and the 160th, they take the cream of the crop. Then they train as a team with the SEALS.&amp;quot; The flying conditions also appear to be of little concern\u2014a weather platform located a few miles from the USNS Arctic recorded a steady wind speed of 18 knots, or more than 20 mph at time time of the crash, with no gusts. The sea state was relatively calm, with waves between 2 and 2.5 feet. The bigger issue may have been the mission&amp;#039;s inherent\u2014and unavoidable\u2014difficulty. This kind of operation, the purpose of which is to get the drop on pirates or terrorists, requires a low, fast approach, and a sustained hover as low as 50 ft., to allow personnel to safely fast-rope onto the vessel below. It also requires darkness. Special operations forces operate almost exclusively at night, and at 8 pm, it&amp;#039;s safe to say that both the rappelling SEALS and the Black Hawk were using night-vision goggles. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s already a high-risk environment,&amp;quot; says Cianfrani. &amp;quot;Hovering in close proximity to structures is very dangerous. Just moving a couple of feet in one direction or the other while in a stabilizing hover could cause an accident. And the risk goes up at night.&amp;quot; Again, the Navy and Army are nowhere near delivering a verdict on the cause of last night&amp;#039;s crash, but the story could ultimately be as simple as it is tragic\u2014a fully qualified, highly-trained special forces team was in the middle of an inherently risky nighttime boarding exercise, when a Black Hawk drifted into the vessel&amp;#039;s mast. It&amp;#039;s a glimpse of a high-wire act that plays out nightly, and only makes headlines when the players come crashing to earth. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/a4727/4334786/>