UPDATED: That's 4 Birds Down in a few days....(make that 5, now with four deaths.)

 Two small choppers went down in water over the weekend, one on each coast...California and Florida.

Now...two more....military choppers in Utah....NO deaths in any of the incidents.

2 Black Hawk helicopters crash during training accident, Utah National Guard says

By Michelle Watson, CNN

Updated 3:38 PM ET, Tue February 22, 2022

     

I've never really piloted a chopper (though I took the stick now and then, briefly, once the craft was airborne). And I spent thousands of hours in them between Vietnam and traffic reporting in Birmingham for WERC Radio in the 70's and 80's. 

 

     They are terrific craft and generally safe...though that may be changing:  

...according to the USHST, the fatal accident rate for helicopters climbed from 0.54 per 100,000 flight hours in 2016 to 0.82 in 2018. That's more than a 50% increase, which is frightening. 

 

UPDATE: Another military chopper crashed in Hawaii on Wednesday. 

HONOLULU — The U.S. Navy said Tuesday four people have died in the crash of a contractor's helicopter on the Hawaii island of Kauai.

The Pacific Missile Range Facility said the aircraft crashed on the north side of the installation shortly after 10 a.m. There were no survivors. The names of those killed were not yet available, it said.

  The National Transportation Safety Board said in a tweet the agency is investigating the crash of the Sikorsky S-61N helicopter.

NOTE: the 70th anniversary of the first U.S. Army helicopter is coming up in May of this year. Like the one that crashed in Hawaii today, it was a Sikorsky.