Tuesday my internet melted down with news and videos of two Black Hawk helicopters crash landing a couple of hundred feet from the base of the Mineral Basin chairlift at Snowbird. From the accounts I’ve seen so far, the pilots and crew were able to walk away from the crash with only minor injuries, and rode the tram down. That seems like a miracle. It’s unclear when things went wrong, but once they did, the pilots were able to make an emergency landing in a controlled enough way that neither the crews nor people on the ground were seriously hurt. And we thought our lift lines were difficult. At least we don’t have helicopters crash landing in the maze and flinging errant pieces of the propeller flying into the scene.
So far, there are no reports about the condition of the helicopters. The Air Force version of them costs about $10.2 million, the Army version is stripped down for only $5.9 million (no floor mats for them). These belonged to the Utah National Guard and could be either version. Getting them out of there will be a challenge. It has to be the most unusual ski patrol response ever, and one they probably had not practiced, although they seem prepared for most anything.
I can’t imagine anybody was deliberately flying that close to the lift. The protocol for landing the medical evac helicopter at the ski resorts requires getting everybody off the lift before there is any possibility of the helicopter hitting the cable. So I assume that the problem developed farther away, and the landing next to the resort was dictated by necessity; the only flat spot available. Having Snowbird’s EMTs on hand would be even better.
Yet some reports said this was a regular landing site in their training. I don’t think the training mission involved strafing vacationing Texans, tempting as that seemed over the weekend. But if landing 150 feet from the base of the Mineral Basin lift on a powder day is a regular thing, the next question is whether they had skis in the helicopter. Because flying a $6 million Black Hawk helicopter to Mineral Basin on a powder day is probably the most amazing hack of the Little Cottonwood Canyon traffic mess imaginable. I don’t mean to make accusations about these fine public servants, just saying that if I had access to a Black Hawk on a powder day, I would do that in a heartbeat.
Military aircraft crashing at Snowbird would be unusual anytime, but Tuesday wasn’t any normal Tuesday. The tensions in Ukraine ratcheted up significantly. The president made it clear that we are not going to get into a shooting war with Russia over Ukraine. In the next breath, he announced the repositioning of U.S. troops working with NATO to move them into Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. That also included moving Black Hawk helicopters into more frontline positions (though probably not Snowbird). Maybe we’re not going to war over Ukraine, but Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are NATO members. Suddenly the possibility of a shooting war over Latvia is on the table. They are training for it right here.
I remember in the days before the 2002 Olympics, I was skiing Perseverance Bowl. The resorts were empty that season in one of those strange Olympic ironies that the host resorts are vacant because the Olympics are in town. I was skiing down the bowl, and suddenly a big helicopter rose up out of nowhere in front of me. I didn’t hear it, for some reason. One glance up from the moguls and the sky was empty, and the next glance, there was a helicopter there with rockets staring me in the face. I could see the pilot; he waved at me. I know exactly how the deer in the headlights feels. That was a couple of weeks ahead of the opening, and the security drills were constant and intimidating. Once the events actually started, the security presence faded out of sight for the most part. But while we were all still in shock from the 9/11 attack, the elevated security was not entirely comforting. On the one hand, it felt like they were doing everything that could be done. On the other, if everything seemed necessary, should we be holding the events at all?
The people at Snowbird on Tuesday were busy skiing and not watching the Russia-Ukraine news, which largely unfolded later in the day anyway. But the precarious world situation would have felt all too real when it appeared that they were under attack, even if it was a drill.
So there we are. As of this writing on Wednesday, we’ve got economic sanctions that are supposed to cripple the Russian economy, Russian troops defending the newfound sovereignty of the pieces of Ukraine that Russia declared are no longer part of Ukraine, NATO forces on alert in the Baltics and Poland, financial markets rattled, predictions of $5 a gallon for gas, and training helicopters crash landing in ski resorts. Were those the winds of war at Snowbird, or just the prop wash of the Black Hawks trying to find a soft landing spot to take a few powder runs?
All is lost in the fog of war. But it sure smells like 1939 all over again.
Tom Clyde practiced law in Park City for many years. He lives on a working ranch in Woodland and has been writing this column since 1986.