Redirect Notice

Having been stationed at Fort Irwin as an aviator for 3 years (I left there a year ago) it pains me to see the loss of life in a helicopter crash that was 100% avoidable. As an Aviation Safety Officer, Mission Briefing Officer, and Air Mission Commander, I look at this tragedy as a learning experience. Our jobs as ASOs are to find out the causes of accidents, where the failures were, and how to prevent them in the future (not just to give the unit a Winter Safe Driving class.) The pilot took off from John Wayne airport (I have flown in and out of there) under Special VFR rules after being told the field is IFR. There appear to be several points of failure along the way that lead to nine people no longer being with is. I do not believe anything other than weather/spatial disorientation to be the cause. Weather conditions were bad enough at the time to preclude the LAPD Air Divison from flying their aircraft. The likelihood of a Sikorsky helicopter that was maintained very well experiencing dual engine failure or anything catastrophic is highly unlikely. I pray for the families of the victims and hope we can all learn from these incidents in the future to prevent them from happening again.