Guns don't kill people, helicopters kill people
Okay, I know guns kill a lot more people than helicopters do, but after reading about this latest disaster I can't help feeling that helicopters are unacceptably dangerous, even for a war zone.
We can't easily stop insurgents from shooting at our troops (well, we could pull out of Iraq, or at least stop arming them, but I digress). What we can control is the use of a vehicle which appears to be a flying death trap.
Lets look at some data. I got these numbers from icasualties.org. Are they a reliable source of information? Supposably.
The first thing I noticed when querying the database is that there are no fewer than five categories for helicopter-related deaths (well, six if you count one poor guy who fell out). The second thing I noticed is that there are nearly as many deaths due to non-hostile helicopter crashes as there are for hostile encounters.
It looks like "missile attack" is a subset of crashes, but the others seem to be distinct categories, so I calculate a total of 230 helicopter-related deaths, or about 5.7% of the total fatalities to date. That might not sound like a lot, but keep in mind there are a lot of ways to die in a war zone. Three people died while disarming an IED. Would you rather go for a ride in a helicopter or disarm a bomb?
The next time someone offers me a ride on a military chopper, I think I'll pass. Whether A) it's being piloted by a kid who probably shouldn't even be allowed to drive a car, B) it's hovering noisily within range of enemy RPGs, or C) it just has sand in its rotors, I don't want to be on it.
We can't easily stop insurgents from shooting at our troops (well, we could pull out of Iraq, or at least stop arming them, but I digress). What we can control is the use of a vehicle which appears to be a flying death trap.
Lets look at some data. I got these numbers from icasualties.org. Are they a reliable source of information? Supposably.
The first thing I noticed when querying the database is that there are no fewer than five categories for helicopter-related deaths (well, six if you count one poor guy who fell out). The second thing I noticed is that there are nearly as many deaths due to non-hostile helicopter crashes as there are for hostile encounters.
| Cause | Deaths |
|---|---|
| Total fatalities to date | 4020 |
| Hostile - helicopter crash | 108 |
| Hostile - helicopter crash (missile attack) | 29 |
| Hostile - helicopter down | 2 |
| Hostile - helicopter shot down | 9 |
| Non-hostile - helicopter crash | 111 |
| Total fatalities involving a helicopter | 230 |
It looks like "missile attack" is a subset of crashes, but the others seem to be distinct categories, so I calculate a total of 230 helicopter-related deaths, or about 5.7% of the total fatalities to date. That might not sound like a lot, but keep in mind there are a lot of ways to die in a war zone. Three people died while disarming an IED. Would you rather go for a ride in a helicopter or disarm a bomb?
The next time someone offers me a ride on a military chopper, I think I'll pass. Whether A) it's being piloted by a kid who probably shouldn't even be allowed to drive a car, B) it's hovering noisily within range of enemy RPGs, or C) it just has sand in its rotors, I don't want to be on it.
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