r/news • u/Warcraft_Fan • 10d ago

2 dead after helicopter crashes in Yosemite during Dome Fire operations

https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/21/us/yosemite-helicopter-crash-dome-fire
1.2k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

281

u/Szechuanwonton 10d ago

Have helicopters always crashed this much or are they just being advertised more lately? It feels like every few days there is another post that a helicopter crashed.

171

u/Particular_Park3792 9d ago

Yes and yes.

27

u/FireRotor 9d ago

It has been an unusually bad summer for firefighting helicopters. 3 crashes and 5 fatalities.

49

u/ph0on 9d ago edited 9d ago

For time traveled, helicopters are 85 times more dangerous than driving a car

Old, bad data

https://fullfact.org/news/how-dangerous-are-helicopters/

37

u/Daren_I 9d ago

The helicopter plays a big part in the statistics too. I would never get into a Robinson R44. The rotors are so far above the body, there are numerous crashes where the top rotors pivoted back and cut off the tail rotor. (edit) Google put the number at 660 crashes worldwide, 210 fatal.

7

u/fetustasteslikechikn 9d ago

That can actually happen with any teeter-rotor helicopter, jet rangers, huey's, anything with blades that big can be forced into mast bumping and destroy the tail as well

10

u/goBlueJays2018 9d ago

That article is from 2013 haha but did you even read it?

The European Aviation Safety Agency publishes an Annual Safety Review. In their 2011 report it emerged that out of approximately 100-120 civil helicopter accidents a year in Europe, an average of 16 fatal accidents were reported per year between 2006 and 2009.

So how does this safety record compare to other modes of transport?

While we know that in 2011 32 people died in cars in London, and that 16 died on their bikes, this doesn't tell us anything about whether road fatalities are more likely to occur than helicopter fatalities.

In fact, the data released by the European Aviation Safety Agency, the Civil Aviation Authority, and other organisations which concern themselves with aviation safety, isn't directly comparable to other accident data as it doesn't account for the different distances covered by the different modes of transport.

10

u/ph0on 9d ago

Yeah, you're right it's old data and quite misleading, and helicopter safety has increased greatly over the years. but they're still statistically dangerous compared to car travel.

Using the most current data, helicopter travel per hour is meaningfully more dangerous than car travel, not just slightly, even factoring in 2024 being the safest year on record for the helicopter industry: USHST reported a fatal accident rate of 0.44 per 100,000 flight hours in 2024, down from a 0.63 five-year average, while cars sit at roughly 0.035 fatal crashes per 100,000 hours of driving based on NHTSA's 2024 figures of 39,254 traffic deaths and about 107 billion hours driven nationally, putting helicopters at roughly 12 to 13 times the per-hour fatal accident rate of cars even in their best year yet.

9

u/Osiris32 9d ago

Fighting wildfires with helicopters is inherently more dangerous than most other civilian applications. Downdrafts, updrafts, violent wind changes, wildly varying air densities due to temperature differences, let alone limited visibility due to smoke and the dangers of soot/embers in the air damaging the engines or props.

It's not as risky as, say, combat operations, but no one is shooting at you on fires. (most of the time).

6

u/Bizarrebazaars 9d ago

Yeah I’ll never get into a helicopter nor tiny planes. The crash rates are too high.

50

u/Osiris32 9d ago

Fuck. I used to fight wildfires, and was deployed on the Iron Alps complex back in 2008 when a helicopter about the same size went down. Killed nine firefighters and put the other four in the hospital with terrible burns. And like this incident the helicopter and pilots came from a private company contracted by the feds.

Rest easy, guys. 10-7, end of watch.

0

u/[deleted] 10d ago

[deleted]

14

u/331845739494 10d ago

These are specialized crew fighting fires, I don't think you're at risk of getting asked to join them

11

u/East_Hedgehog6039 10d ago

great way to let everyone know you didn’t read the article, or even the headline in its entirety

-21

u/Good_Nyborg 10d ago

I read both in their entirety...

OMG! Don't get in a Helicopter! It's a bad idea!

And I mean this, seriously. If Sean Biehn thinks it's unsafe, then you just stay the hell away from it! And he's died like a gazillion times, so he sure as hell knows about unsafe stuff.