The War Zone: Military Helicopters Descend On Washington In Bizarre Very Low-Altitude Show Of Force

[cha12 ba]

06/02/20

S. Army UH-72 Lakota helicopters, as well as UH-60 Black Hawks, one possibly belonging to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, have been flying extremely low-level show-of-force maneuvers over areas of Washington, D.C. in obvious attempts to try to disperse groups protesting the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota last week.


Some of the helicopters have held a hover right over groups of people, hitting them with their rotor wash and the deafening sound of their rotors and engines. This comes after President Donald Trump announced he had ordered hardline measures against protesters and rioters in the nation's capital, including the deployment of additional national guardsmen, federal troops, and federal law enforcement officers.

Daniella Cheslow, a reporter for WAMU 88.5, American University Radio, in Washington, D.C. posted the video seen below of one UH-72 Lakota "parked" above a group of people on Twitter. Steven Dengler, the co-founder of XE Currency, a FOREX software tools and services company, and a licensed helicopter pilot, chimed in to point out that, at least under Federal Aviation Administration rules, this maneuver was very illegal.


It also seems bizarrely dangerous. If something were to have happened to the helicopter, it could have quickly fallen into the crowd, offering them little chance to get out of the way. The risk of rotor wash sending debris flying either into the helicopter or toward people on the ground is another risk from this kind of flight profile, especially in a dense urban environment. There is no surveillance value added by hovering at that low of an altitude, quite the contrary actually.

There have been examples of military units, particularly the Army's elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, conducting similar flights in domestic urban areas for training in the past, but with the cooperation of local authorities to help keep bystanders safely away and areas clear of potential dangers.

The UH-72 in this instance has red crosses on white square backgrounds on its door and under the fuselage, denoting that its primary mission is as an air ambulance. It's not clear what unit the Lakota, or a standard Black Hawk that was also seen performing similar maneuvers, are assigned to. Both the D.C. National Guard and the active Army's 12th Aviation Battalion, the latter of which is based at Davison Army Airfield in Virginia, have UH-72s, including examples in the air ambulance role, as well as UH-60 Black Hawks.

There is also a possibility, albeit much less likely, that the helicopters might have come from somewhere else given that the Trump Administration has called in substantial additional federal military and law enforcement support.

Embedded Tweet

Embedded Tweet

More:
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...-show-of-force