This morning there was a new issue of FLYING in my dad's mail. As is my habit, I skimmed through it looking for something interesting. I usually skip over the accident reports, but today one caught my eye.
Specifically, the word "cattle" caught my eye.
Now, "cattle" is not a word I'm used to seeing in aviation accident reports (and I used to read "Aviation Safety" religiously, so I know whereof I speak). "Ducks", "Seagulls", "Geese", and similar: OK, they populate the reports pretty often, as anyone who knows the name "Sullenberger" must be familiar with. But "Cattle"? No. Not at all.
Anyway, the FLYING report indicated that this pilot, flying an R-22 (small helicopter) had landed after using it to herd some cattle from the air. He intended to leave immediately, after fiddling some corral gates, so he left the engine running. Apparently, a cow, never the most intellectual of creatures, was spooked by the engine and spinning main rotor, and leaped the fence.
Now, if YOU were just escaped from a corral after being spooked by a noisy machine, what would you do? That's right: run RIGHT TOWARD THE MACHINE. And collide (or, in the language of the accident report "make contact") with the spinning main rotor.
The collision caused the chopper to jump around a bit, scaring a few more cattle, who proceeded to run right into the chopper, causing it to "become momentarily airborne".
This did not end well. The summary report only mentioned that the pilot was uninjured (except, no doubt, for his "incredulity" gland, which must have suffered a severe sprain.) No mention of the cattles' injuries was included in the summary. The R-22 did not survive.
Poor cows.
Anyway, this reminded both of us of a tale from Dad's time in Korea. Apparently, returning from a ground-attack mission (flying F4U Corsairs), they were so low to the level of the local rice paddies, that various water buffalo on the dikes between the paddies were, shall we say, "too high to avoid". A little cannon fire solved that problem. At least there was no collision between the buffalo and the Corsairs, which would, no doubt, have been hard to explain to the squadron CO.
Dad claims they were probably North Korean cows.
