SAN DIEGO — Two Navy helicopter pilots from North Island Naval Air Station have been grounded over a YouTube video that allegedly shows them dipping the $33 million aircrafts into Lake Tahoe. In the video taken Sept. 13, both helicopters hit the water and one seems to spin out of control and crash into the water before its pilot apparently pulls the craft back into the air.
A Navy spokesman confirmed that the video was genuine footage of two MH- 60 Romeo helicopters from North Island’s Helicopter Maritime Strike 41 squadron, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported. North Island Naval Air Forces command spokesman Lt. Aaron Kakiel told the newspaper the pilots were grounded pending an aviation mishap board investigation.
Lake Tahoe is not a normal training area for Navy pilots. The helicopters were being flown home to North Island from an air show near Sacramento, the Union-Tribune reported. Damage to the helicopters was estimated at between $50,000 and $500,000, according to the newspaper, which reported that the grounded pilots had to land at Lake Tahoe Airport following the incident and a different set of pilots eventually flew the helicopters home.
There’s a bit of good news in the fact that any water that may have gotten into the electronics or machinery is some of the purest, low-mineral water around. I did a quick lookup of Tahoe’s mineral content, and it is approximately 1/500th that of ocean water. Here’s a photo I took of Emerald Bay (the scene of the crime) about 4 weeks before this incident occurred. It would appear that the pilots were screwing around well past the island, probably fairly close to the mouth of the bay:
http://flickr.com/photos/54299433@N06/5023534117/sizes/z/in/dateposted/
Beautiful photo