Russian Mi-28 Helicopter Crashes during Airshow Display

Mi 28 Helicopter Crashes during Airshow

A Russian military helicopter has crashed at an air show before thousands of spectators, killing one crew member and injuring another.

Video footage clearly show the tail rotor failing and the gunship starting to spin uncontrollably before hitting the ground in an uncontrolled crash-landing:

The commander of the Mi-28 helicopter was killed. The he aircraft crashed during an aerobatic display at the August 2 air show in the Russian region of Ryazan, 200 kilometers southeast of Moscow.

"The commander has died, the second pilot is alive. According to the second pilot, equipment failure caused the accident," the head of the Russian Air Forces, Colonel General Viktor Bondarev, was quoted by the RIA Novosti news agency as saying.

The air show, Aviadarts, featured Russian Air Force plane and helicopter crews competing to fulfill timed assignments.

No spectators were injured, and the event was suspended for the day following the accident.

Russia's air force has used the Soviet-designed Mi-28 since the mid-2000s, and the aircraft is also exported to numerous countries, including Iraq.

Bondarev has grounded the country's Mi-28 fleet pending an investigation. The surviving crewmember who ejected, reports that hydraulic failure was to blame. This is the 4th crash of an Mi-28 due to hydraulic or gearbox failure.

There have been at least six incidents over the past few weeks involving Russian military planes and helicopters

Airworthy Messerschmitt BF109 Crashes

Red Seven Crashes in Denmark

A charmed life: This Me Bf 109 has survived 3 crashes.

The pilot was unhurt and the aircraft does not seem to have suffered heavy damage. The propeller is shattered and the engine will certainly have suffered, but the pilot’s decision to land in an unharvested wheat field probably helped to limit the damage to the airframe.

This is the third time that this aircraft has been damaged. It crashed in 2005 and, after being rebuilt, it made a wheels-up landing in 2008.

The Messerschmitt Stiftung's "Rote Sieben" (Red Seven) was built as a Hispano (CASA) license built Bf-109, the Hispano HA-1112 M-1L Buchón, Spain in 1950 with c/n 139. After delivery she first served with the Ejercito del Aire with serial C.4K-75.

After being stuck of charge she was stored on Tablada before being sold to the United Kingdom in 1968, registered as G-AWHH. She starred as a Bf-109E "yellow 11" and "red 14" in the famous movie "The Battle of Britain". 

For another role in a movie she was reconverted into a P-51 "Mustang". Therefore a fake belly-cooler was attached. But she unfortunately crashed during a take-off and was severely damaged.

After her accident she was sold to the USA being registered as N3109G and restored to flying condtion. She was flown for the first and last time from Casper, Wyoming in 1986 as she crashed on take-off. After she was "repaired" to represent an Bf-109E-4 in static condition and in open storage. 

She was in a poor state when she arrived in Augsburg, Germany in the 1990s where a couple of enthusiasts had the ambitious plan to restore her to Bf-109G-4 "Gustav" specifications, including the Daimler-Benz DB605 engine.

Her first owner gave up on the plan fairly soon an in 1998 she was moved to the Messerschmitt Air Company (MAC) at Albstadt-Degerfeld. There she would undergo an expensive and time consuming restoration, that took over 30.000 hours. The work was completed in 2004 and on October 8 of that year she was presented to the public; the Rote Sieben had come to life!

On July 15, 2005 disaster struck as she was involved in a crash landing. While she touched down at her home, Albstadt-Degerfeld, the main gear collapsed resulting in a violent ground spin. The engine broke of the fuselage and the fighter was heavily damaged. 

At that point it wasn't clear if she would ever take the skies again. While being repaired the MAC was having difficulties to raise the funds to finalize the needed work and in December 2007 she was adopted by the Manching based Messerschmitt Stiftung. On April 2, 2008 she made, with Walter Eichhorn as her pilot, her first 15 minute test flight.

But then on April 15, 2008, just two weeks after her first flight, disaster struck again. While on approach to Manching, the pilot, Walter Eichhorn, found out that the right main gear of the 109 wasn't locked. After several attempts he found himself forced to make a wheels-up landing. 

The "Rote Sieben" was damaged, but thanks to the superb landing of Eichhorn the damage was kept to a minimum. After the previous accident in 2005, this mend that yet another round of repairs where necessary. 

After the repairs were made the "Rote Sieben" made her first flight on February 19, 2009 with Walter Eichhorn as pilot.

Now again belly landed in a corn field on August 18th 2013 during an airshow display at Roskilde Airport, Denmark. The pilot was unharmed, and the aircraft sustained only minor damage, including a completely broken propeller:

Paris Airshow: US Absent, Russians rules roost, Airbus pulls Grizzly

Paris Airshow 2013:  US Absent, Russians rules the roost, Airbus pulls Grizzly

So the Paris Airshow has started, minus attendance from the US Military and Airbus' A440M Grizzly/Atlas transport.The US did not attend due to budget cuts.

This has left Russia as the main military exhibitor to wow the crowds with their aircraft:

Russia’s Sukhoi has rocked the 50th Paris Air Show at Le Bourget with the premiere of its cutting-edge Su-35 fighter. Super-maneuverable even for a Sukhoi, the Su-35 has been dubbed the “UFO” for its outstanding maneuverability.

Su -35

Two other Russian aircraft will also debut at Le Bourget: The Yakovlev Yak-130 ‘Mitten,’ a subsonic two-seat light attack jet, and the Kamov Ka-52 ‘Alligator,' a coaxial helicopter gunship.

But the first demonstration flight of a Ka-52 has already been accompanied by a minor scandal, as the gunship was banned from its scheduled flight. Two Eurocopter Tiger helicopters performed in the program instead.

“The crew started the engine and began the taxing maneuver when it received the organizers' instruction to return to the static parking area and to stop the engine,” a Kamov spokesperson said.

A source in the Russian delegation said the "organizers explained this by the fact that the French prime minister was visiting the air show at the moment." The source said that if the European helicopters had flown after the Ka-52, they would have attracted less attention.

Later in the day, the Alligator finally made it to the skies, though the exhibition was already closing and many of the guests had already left the show. A demonstration flight of a Yak-130 trainer took place on schedule.

The airshow at the Le Bourget exhibition center takes place from June 17 to 23, and opens to the public on June 21. The event brings together over 3,000 aircraft manufacturers from 44 countries: 1,040 French, 350 American, 124 German and 115 Italian. Forty-six of these companies, including Sukhoi, are Russian.

Last year’s Le Bourget airshow saw a record $100 billion in contracts signed; organizers expect at least $125 billion to be signed this year.

Some 70 percent of the more than 140 aircraft being exhibited are civil, and the rest are military. Around 40 aircraft will give flight demonstrations.


Images gleaned off internet, not my work happy to credit owners on request. No copyright infringement intended .Just leave a comment.

The Sukhoi Su-35 (NATO classification: Flanker E), Russia’s newest, super-maneuverable, multirole fighter jet has conducted its first training flight at the Paris Air Show, and aircraft industry experts were reportedly wowed by the jet’s performance.

“The plane easily passes from low-speed super-maneuverability mode to high-speed combat flight,” test pilot Sergey Bogdan said. Bogdan will pilot all Su-35 flights at the Paris Air Show. The engines are so powerful that the plane could be pulled out of any complicated situation, like a spin, at pilot’s will, he explained: “All you need is to get with the plane on the same wave, to caress and stroke it because, you know, it is a living being.”

There will be little competition for the Su-35 at the Paris Air Show, primarily because sequestration in the US Military’s budget has left Le Bourget without any US Military airplanes present, either for displays or show flights. The Su-35 has become the first Russian fighter jet to take part in the Paris Air Show since 2001, while this is the first time 1991 the US has not presented a fighter jet at Le Bourget.

This 4++ generation aircraft uses fifth-generation technology, and its advanced avionics, new engines, and remarkable weapons array mounted on 12 external hardpoints outperform any existing fourth-generation fighter.

It has top speed of 2,400 km/h, a 3,600 kilometer range, an 18 kilometer ceiling, and an advanced radar system to detect large targets from as far as 400 kilometers.

Probably the only major feature that the Su-35 lacks - and which prevents it from being labeled fifth-generation - is limited stealth capability, as only some parts of its airframe are made of composite material. Nonetheless, it can detect stealth aircraft such as the US’s F-35 at a distance of over 90 kilometers.

The aircraft’s thrust/weight ratio is unique at a kilo of thrust per kilo of aircraft weight, thanks to a pair of brand new 117C jet engines.

Pugchev's Cobra

This enables Su-35 to perform all current maneuvres/ stunts, including Russian specialties such as Pugachev's Cobra, the Frolov Chakra, the Dead Leaf, and the unprecedented Pancake, which is an horizontal 360-degree made turn without losing speed. The Pancake is performed only by the Su-35.

Frolov Chakra

With these characteristics, the Su-35 surpasses practically all modern fighter jets such as France’s Rafale, Sweden’s Gripen, the Eurofighter 2000, and the modernized US F-15, F-16, and F-18. It is on a par with the fifth-generation US F-35 and F-22A, neither of which are currently on the market.

The Su-35 is generating so much interest that the airshow organizers have assigned it a spot right in the middle of the main avenue of the exhibition.

The Russian Air Force currently has 10 Su-35s, to be increased to 48 by the end of 2015.

The first country to buy a Sukhoi Su-35 could be China, as Beijing is already in talks with the manufacturer: “We have signed an intergovernmental agreement on the supply of Su-35 planes to China," Aleksandr Mikheyev, deputy head of Russian arms corporation Rosoboronexport told reporters.

"As of today we have a legal base with China. An agreement on the protection of intellectual property has been signed," Mikheyev added. Beijing reportedly intends to buy 24 Su-35s, with a contract due to be signed by the end of 2013.

Airbus was forced to abandon the public debut of the A400M, the troop carrier running four years late and developed at a cost of more than €20bn (£17.6bn) for Britain, France, Germany and four other nations.
The flypast, scheduled for today, would have been one of the highlights of the week-long show but the gearbox problem in one of the huge turbo-props is the latest setback for a project plagued by delays and squabbles which have extended to a row over the name.

Airbus has nicknamed the plane "Grizzly" but an indignant RAF intends to call the aircraft Atlas to reflect its endurance capabilities when it makes its debut at Farnborough next month. Air Chief Marshall Sir Stephen Dalton has said "Grizzly" would be accepted "over my dead body."

There are doubts about whether Atlas will be cleared for take off in time for the British air show following the discovery of the gearbox problem. Domingo Urena-Raso, Airbus Military chief executive, said that "flight test requirements are very demanding at the moment."

The long development delays have exasperated politicians and air forces while engineers have wrestled with the technical challenges posed by the advanced turbo-prop technology. The programme was on the brink of cancellation last year but Britain and other buyers reluctantly agreed to stump up another €3.5bn to get the plane into service.