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I’ll never forget the night my crew and I were flying an MH-60M Special Operations helicopter during a night raid in a dusty, low-visibility, contested environment. The mission was going according to plan. We were conducting a loss-of-visual-reference approach, relying entirely on our aircraft systems and instrumentation to guide us. Everything was quiet, methodical and routine until we were suddenly hit with an emergency that challenged everything we knew about flying.
The objective was clear: land at a specific site, deliver our customer and get out. That was simple enough, or so I thought, having done this hundreds of times. As we approached the landing zone (LZ), heavy dust kicked up from the lead helicopter’s rotor wash, and visibility became almost nonexistent. We lost all visual ground reference and were essentially flying blind, but we were trained to do this. It was the kind of mission that tests a crew’s training and ability to manage in tough, real-world situations. Unfortunately, as we descended, disaster struck as our aircraft hit powerlines that were not identified in our pre-mission planning and not visible in the dust cloud.
The sound was unmistakable — like a snap followed by an immediate right yaw and the sickening realization something had gone horribly wrong. My heart raced, but it was at that moment that my years of training kicked in. I had one job: keep my cool and get my crew and passengers out of this alive.
Looking back, it’s clear the fundamentals of those basic skills that we drilled in training every day from the beginning were the reason we survived. We didn’t panic or make rash decisions. Instead, we followed procedure. We immediately executed a go-around, pulling collective power, and started to climb away from the wires and out of the dust cloud. This seemed basic, even though we had no instrumentation due to loss of electrical power from a drooping rotor. Our ability to stay calm and follow basic helicopter fundamentals kept the situation from escalating.
But this story isn’t just about a close call. It’s about the reality that the basics, the stuff we sometimes take for granted, are what keep us alive. We train to perform in high-pressure, low-visibility environments. It’s that training that made all the difference when the wires appeared.
Unfortunately, the focus on basic skills — like aircraft control, emergency procedure execution and crew communication, which allowed us to recover from a potentially fatal mishap that night — is no longer being ingrained in our aviators. Instead, we are teaching them to be system managers and limiting flight hours in actual aircraft, using simulators as primary trainers to save money.
More experienced pilots tend to make better decisions under pressure, and a lack of experience can lead to poor judgment in critical situations. The rise in mishaps correlates directly with the decline in flight hours per aviator, which has decreased by an average of 300 hours over the last decade (U.S. Army Combat Readiness Center, 2025). This loss of experience creates a dangerous gap in readiness, leaving pilots less prepared to handle emergencies effectively.
But this incident also highlighted an important point: We need to change how we approach pilot training to combat the growing gap in experience. If aviators aren’t getting enough flight time, they can’t build the muscle memory and mental fortitude needed for high-pressure situations. The lessons learned from this incident shouldn’t be forgotten in a few months. Instead, they should serve as a reminder that the survival of military aviators depends on their ability to master the basics under extreme pressure, and it all starts in flight school.
However, these efforts can’t stop there. The growing experience deficit must be addressed by providing more flight hours and realistic training scenarios for aviators, ensuring that we’re not only teaching pilots to fly, but also teaching them how to handle crises when they arise. Extremely risk-adverse leaders will not yield readily trained aviators for the fight of the future.
In the end, we were fortunate. We got out of that dust cloud with our lives, but we know that not every crew will be so fortunate. Our survival wasn’t just luck; it was the result of years of training, focusing on the basics and being prepared for the unexpected. As aviators, we must ensure the next generation of pilots is just as well-prepared, if not better. If we fail to do that, we won’t just be risking our lives, we’ll be risking the lives of those who depend on us.
Reference:
U.S. Army Combat Readiness Center. (2025). FY24 Aviation Annual Assessment. Retrieved from https://safety.army.mil/ON-DUTY/Aviation/Aviation-Analytics-Dashboard