Autopilot issue contributed to naval helicopter crash that killed six: investigation

submited by
Style Pass
2021-06-28 21:00:07

OTTAWA — A military investigation has found that an autopilot issue played a major role in the deadly crash of a Cyclone helicopter off the coast of Greece last year.

As a pilot guided the naval helicopter into a tight turn, a built-in autopilot took control and sent the aircraft into the Ionian Sea, killing all six personnel on board. The process played out even though the pilot received no training or cockpit indicators to warn of how the automation system would respond in that "very specific" circumstance, the Defence Department said in a release.

The crash of the Stalker 22 on April 29, 2020, caused the worst single-day loss of life for the Canadian Armed Forces since six soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing in Afghanistan on July 4, 2007.

It marked the third incident involving a Cyclone, with defective software blamed for one of the helicopters' suddenly dropping several hundred feet during a test flight in 2017. Another had a "hard landing" on a ship in February 2019.

Leave a Comment