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Expert perspective from Nick Gregory. That's right, Nick, not only you're a meteorologist
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you're a certified pilot, a flight instructor. So you and I just hopped on air the second this
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happened. We really didn't know much. And as the video came in, it became quite clear some sort of
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catastrophic failure happened. Exactly. And I think, again, what was fascinating about that video
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something I'd never seen before, was the rotor blades, the whole potential hub of the rotor
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blade coming off the helicopter. And at that point, with no lift being able to be generated anymore by the blades, you
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saw the result. We heard all the experts, yourself included, saying once that happens, the pilot has no role
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You have no control because at that point, again, there's no way to maintain any lift
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And I think the other part of this was when the blades separated, the belief is that it
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took out the tail, the tail rotor, which is in the back there as well
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Again, nothing that the pilot could do in that scenario. I mean there are possibilities when there is an engine failure and everything is still intact that they do what's called an auto rotation where they can detach from the transmission
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The rotor blades can detach from the transmission and you can sort of use the energy the momentum Those blades are still spinning and the pilot can bring the helicopter down what called sort of a safe auto land auto rotation back to the ground and land normally
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But in this situation, there's no control. No propeller at all. No way to be able to control the situation at the last minute
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And when we first came on air, we thought maybe the weather had played a role in this. And then it was clear that this was a catastrophic midair equipment failure
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But nonetheless, I mean, a rescue effort in temperatures, freezing temperatures in the Hudson River
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I mean, that's that's challenging, too. And the weather was deteriorating right during the recovery process because, you know, we had the wind pick up in the afternoon
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At the time of the incident, the accident there, the wind was gusting about 30 miles an hour
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And as the rescue and recovery efforts were going on, it started to rain
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Yeah. So and you can see there was white caps on the Hudson there. So, you know, it made it a challenge and water temperatures being in the 40s to about 50 degrees
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That's a challenge for survival, but also the divers. They have a limited time to spend in the water when the water is that cold
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Yeah, unfortunately, it didn't wind up mattering. Just the crash was too intense and all six people on board died
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All right, Nick, we appreciate your perspective, as always
