Afghan Chopper Crash Was "Choatic": Reporter

Early Monday morning, a Canadian Chinook Helicopter crash landed in a remote part of the Panjwaii in Afghanistan.  The helicopter crashed on landing at night, when the pilot misjudged his altitude, and the helicopter flipped on it's side.  On-board the helicopter were 25 soldiers, 5 crew members, and one reporter.  The reporter said that it all happened so fast, and there was hardly any time to think about what was happening.  The helicopter flipped on its side, sending all of the soldiers on one side of the helicopter toppling onto the other soldiers on the other side.  Luckily enough, there were no insurgents in the area, and so the personnel on-board were able to secure the area around the crash site.  Four soldiers were injured in the crash, one was seriously injured, and was loud at the site of the crash, because of the injuries he sustained.

I believe that this is a very unfortunate accident, and it was human that caused it, so there is some room for improvement.  Night landings in a helicopter can be extremely tricky, and it was human-error that this accident happened.  Taking away from this accident, I hope that now The Royal Canadian Air Force (The RCAF) should include some more night landing training into their helicopter pilot training.  This would hopefully prevent further accidents, like this one, in the future.  The reporter on-board the helicopter during the accident, has described the accident in detail, and it truly sounded chaotic.  I am just glad to hear that no soldiers were killed, or more were hurt.

Link: http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2011/05/16/afghan-chopper-crash.html