Incident
During a high-altitude rescue mission in remote and nearly vertical terrain, a public use helicopter crewed by a pilot and a tactical flight officer conducted a one-skid recovery to retrieve a fallen hiker. The helicopter's right skid was placed on a rock outcrop. A three-person ground recovery team approached the helicopter to begin loading the victim. One team member had secured himself to a rescue rope anchored to the steep terrain above the plane of rotation of the main rotor blades.
As the ground team approached, the rescue rope came in contact with a main rotor blade. The pilot reported that the helicopter then rotated abruptly to the left and began to shake violently. The helicopter impacted the terrain, after which the pilot regained control and performed an emergency landing at a lower altitude.
During the landing approach, the pilot applied power and the helicopter began to shake violently again until touchdown, at which point the pilot reduced collective pitch.
Post-Accident Inspection
A postflight inspection revealed substantial damage to the main rotor system, the tail boom, and the empennage. The pilot reported that there were no pre-impact mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation.
Manual References
The United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service (for the National Search and Rescue Academy) has published a manual, *Helicopter Rescue Techniques* (2013), which describes various rescue techniques and emphasizes the need to understand helicopter limitations and avoid poor decision-making under pressure. The Mountain Rescue Association (MRA) has published manuals, including *Helicopters in Search and Rescue Intermediate Level* (2008), which notes that for one-skid recoveries, terrain and rotor clearance are critical. The MRA's *Situational Awareness in Mountain Rescue* (2008) defines situational awareness as the accuracy of one's perception of the environment and outlines three stages: perception, comprehension, and projection.