Accident Spurs Army to Ground Helicopter Fleet for Inspections
The Army said Monday it has grounded its fleet of UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters for a precautionary inspection as a result of an accident last week.
The service said the inspections for the vast majority of the 820 Blackhawks in the Army inventory would take only about two hours per copter, and that many of them would return to service shortly.
The inspections will focus on the “oil cooler in the tail rotor-drive shaft of all Blackhawk-series aircraft,” an Army statement said.
The checks were prompted by an incident on May 1 in West Germany, when an Army pilot had to make an emergency landing after the “oil cooler spline” in his tail rotor assembly failed, the Army said. No one was injured.
The spline is part of an oil cooling fan in the tail rotor-drive train. If the spline and cooling fan fail, the drive shaft for the tail rotor can overheat and seize, stopping the tail rotor from operating.
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