Aircraft crash videos

On August 2, 2026, two Bell 214ST firefighting helicopters collided at low altitude near Psatha, in the Attica region, approximately 70 km west of Athens, Greece. The aircraft had been leased to the Greek authorities by a private company and were involved in efforts to contain a major wildfire in the Porto Germeno area. Footage shows the helicopters crossing paths in formation before the rotor of one aircraft apparently struck the other helicopter. One of them caught fire and crashed. Its two occupants, a Danish pilot and a Greek flight coordinator, were killed. The two occupants of the second helicopter survived.

July 6th, 2022 - The Airbus Helicopters AS 350B3 Ecureuil avoided a crash at the Vieille lighthouse, off the Pointe du Raz, France, during a maintenance operation of the Lighthouse. The helicopter was removing one of the frames from the lighthouse's lantern. It lifted the load, became unbalanced and the pilot lost control. A worker on ground was injured as the load caught him against the wall. The pilot recovered the aircraft a few meters from the surface of the sea. Emergency floating devices were activated, which cause the smoke visible on the video. The helicopter was operated by Mont Blanc Hélicoptères Bretagne.

Little Rock, USA, AR – August 16th 2018 - The Bell TH-67 helicopter belonging to Little Rock Police Department was performing a maintenance ground run after new equipment was put in the helicopter. A wind gust destabilized suddenly the helicopter. The helicopter has been destroyed. The sole pilot onboard was seriously injured.

Mi-24 or Mi-35 helicopter being struck by a MANPADS missile, near Kiev, Ukraine. All the helicopter crew was killed. The video is undated, but has been released on March 5th 2022.
Man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS) are light portable surface-to-air missiles. They are guided weapons and are a threat to low-flying aircraft, especially helicopters.

An Airbus Helicopter H145, callsign Dragon 972, operated the French government civil-protection-branch hit three high voltage power lines near the shoreline of Schoelcher, Martinique, during a rescue operation on April 3rd 2019.
The helicopter had just winched up a person out of the sea from a boat 150 meters offshore. Rescue-diver and the victim were hanging on the winch below the helicopter, when it flew into the power lines. The H145 is equipped with cable scissors, which succeeded in cutting the power lines and the crew rapidly recover the control of their machine. The winch-cable released and both persons fell down into the water, but swam safely to shore.

Crash of a Squirrel helicopter in Auckland, New Zealand – The rotorcraft was erecting a seven story Christmas tree. The helicopters rotor struck a cable causing the aircraft to crash. Miraculously, the pilot suffered only minor injuries.
The accident happened in November 2011. The causes of the accident have been established: massive out of balance forces tore through the helicopter after it struck the lifting line, which was attached to the bottom of the helicopter and the top of a nearby tower. After raising the tower, the helicopter descended to hover at about 5m so the lifting line could be detached from its hook by the rigging supervisor on the ground. When the rigging supervisor jumped up to grab the line, it instantly tightened and touched the helicopter's main rotor blades. The force of the impact caused major structural damage and the aircraft hit the ground.

This Robinson R44 Astro helicopter crashed on a car in Kroonstad, South Africa. One pilot and three passengers were on board. There were no fatalities and only minor injuries were reported.
Investigation determined that the pilot had inadvertently switched off the main hydraulics instead to switch the speaker to the on position. The pilot therefore had no control of the aircraft prior to impact.

This news helicopter went out of control and crashed on the roof of a building in Brooklyn, New York. The chopper broke in two. 3 people were onboard (pilots and reporter). All of them escaped with minor injuries.

This Bell UH-1 Iroquois chopper, also known as Huey, suffered an engine failure just before landing. The crew tried to perform an autorotation landing, but missed the maneuver.

This helicopter, carrying the Colombian security service president, fell and crashed seconds after take-off. Though the impact is quite violent, there is no fatality.

Australian Black Hawk crashing while attempting to land on an aircraft carrier during a training mission.

This CH-53 helicopter is being air-to-air refuelled, but as it is approaching the tanker’s hose, the chopper suddenly pitches up and its rotor cut out its refuelling boom.