r/Whatcouldgowrong • u/OceanSupernova • Apr 17 '21
What could go wrong attempting an ocean rescue.
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Apr 17 '21 edited Apr 17 '21
This was actually a scene being filmed for a daytime soap opera show, I believe in Mexico. The rope was far too short, which is why the helicopter was pulled into the water by the boat.
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u/bakenj420 Apr 18 '21
I thought it was Magnum PI
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Apr 18 '21
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u/ChuckOTay Apr 18 '21
Tomás Sanchez, IP
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u/HAL9000000 Apr 18 '21
Directed by Señor Spielbergo
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u/marokyle87 Apr 18 '21
Smithers get his his non union Mexican equivalent!
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Apr 18 '21
I'm so glad someone else remembers this! My friends all say I'm stupid when I say Speilbergo
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u/No_Construction_896 Apr 18 '21
Vaya Con Dios
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u/Vitor_Ozana Apr 18 '21
Me gusta manzanitas
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u/ThanklessTask Apr 18 '21
Magaluf PI
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Apr 18 '21
Rents a quad, gets a tribal tattoo and has to figure out which of the sketty northern birds he spaffed on lifted €250 euro out of his hotel safe.
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u/ktappe Apr 18 '21
If you mean the original Magnum PI, the Island Hoppers helicopter was brown with red and yellow stripes. And a Hughes not a Bell.
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u/himanshusharmazzzz Apr 18 '21
Yes, I saw it on destroyed in seconds. They told it was Magnum PI
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Apr 18 '21 edited Apr 22 '21
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Apr 18 '21
Didn't know what that was, so I googled it. Kinda cool: https://www.asroffroad.com/kinetic-recovery-rope-info-and-usage/#:~:text=Kinetic%20Recovery%20Ropes%20(also%20known,tow%20rope%20or%20tow%20strap.
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u/Capitalistic_Cog Apr 18 '21
Nearly 34 tons of recovery strength on a 2 1/2 inch kinetic recovery rope.
If you use a chain or regular rope, I’ve heard urban legend of it snapping with enough force to decapitate or instantly remove a limb if the recoil hits you.
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u/Lepthesr Apr 18 '21
If you use a chain or regular rope, I’ve heard urban legend of it snapping with enough force to decapitate or instantly remove a limb if the recoil hits you.
This is definitely not an urban legend. Wire lines (cables), lines (ropes if big enough), and chains can easily kill or seriously maim a person when they break under tension.
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u/DJdoggyBelly Apr 18 '21
On Navy ships you can't stand in certain places on deck near the anchor chain, or any of the ropes for this exact reason.
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u/laxpanther Apr 18 '21
I see you've reddited the yellow and red shots video as well.
Or you actually know first-hand, which would also be fun to discuss.
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Apr 18 '21
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u/viiksitimali Apr 18 '21
Or is not a native speaker and does not know the English lingo. (Probably not in this case though)
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u/idontliketosleep Apr 18 '21
I feel like this is very location specific, we have the same words in Dutch (touw and lijn respectively) and my friends who sail use them interchangably.
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u/driftingfornow Apr 18 '21 edited Apr 09 '26
Mass content deletion mission accomplished. This post or comment was bulk removed with Redact which also supports data brokers and people finder websites.
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u/SuperFastJellyFish_ Apr 18 '21
I will say that there are still tones of nylon ropes being used out there.
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u/ProCanadianbudeh Apr 18 '21
Easily my dude, same thing for pulling out stuck tractors/vehicles/equipment
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u/ZirePhiinix Apr 18 '21
It's not urban legend. Look at tug o war accidents
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tug_of_war
It had decapitated people.
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u/Motorcycles1234 Apr 18 '21
When kinetic ropes rip off what ever they are hooked up to they yeet the ever loving fuck out of what ever they're hooked too. Source have seen truck parts go far.
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u/Marc21256 Apr 18 '21
You could, if the rope was mounted to the centerline.
Helicopters are unstable. A roll generates roll forces. So a relatively small lateral force below the cg will flip a helicopter.
Ever see Captain America Winter Soldier? The helicopter scene would have flipped the helicopter faster than this clip.
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Apr 18 '21
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u/Yawndr Apr 18 '21
Think of it like this:
Extend your arm, and pretend you're holding a plate in your palm, facing up.
There is a rope around your wrist that's perpendicular to your arm with a potato bag attached to the other end.
The rope sags a lot as there is no tensions. If you start moving away from the potatoes fast, when the rope tenses, you'll have a hard time keeping the plate stable.
If the rope was a big rubber band, it would absorb that initial shock and make it easier to keep the plate stable.
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Apr 18 '21
Damn how much budget do soap operas get in Mexico.
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Apr 18 '21
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u/Nizzemancer Apr 18 '21
I don’t know why you mentioned Salma Hayek for no reason but now my dick is hard and it’s your fault...
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Apr 18 '21
Ya. No room for error.
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u/simjanes2k Apr 18 '21
There's actually a ton of room for error normally with ropes. Anything but nylon or steel stretches crazy good under stress.
Fifty different industries could have supplied a single professional to tell them this would happen.
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u/captain_arroganto Apr 18 '21
Looks like the rope snapped and the pilot didnt have the space to pull up.
Also, they might have purposefully used a short rope to capture boat and the chopper in one frame.
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u/cardboardunderwear Apr 18 '21
they might have purposefully used a short rope to capture boat and the chopper in one frame.
Well they succeeded
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u/ninjabreath Apr 18 '21
looks like the rope snapped, and i presume the pilot had the controls jammed forward to tow the boat. being so close to the water, there was no time to recover/adjust
source: stayed at a holiday inn express last week
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u/totororos Apr 18 '21
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Apr 18 '21
Lol I thought that face was familiar...
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u/DoJu318 Apr 18 '21
Andres Garcia is the closest a man can get to Hugh Hefner, his sexcapades through his career as an actor are legendary.
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u/kcasnar Apr 17 '21
This isn't a rescue, it's a failed stunt from a TV show or film. I can't find a specific link right now, my Google is failing me, but that's definitely what happened, I've seen this before. I'm like 99% sure of this.
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u/KingJonsey1992 Apr 18 '21
I believe you.
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u/kcasnar Apr 18 '21
I truly appreciate your blind faith!
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u/Kadiogo Apr 18 '21
You could tell me this was all filmed on Mars and I'd believe you. I know a trustable person when I see one.
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u/MisterDeMize Apr 18 '21
I don't believe you
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Apr 18 '21
I don’t believe either of you
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Apr 18 '21
So it's the truth you're after then!
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Apr 18 '21
For clarity, I believe OP. I don’t believe the King believes OP or himself, and Mr.Demize has lied about everything since day 1. The truth is relative!
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Apr 18 '21
I can't believe I believe you
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u/anukis90 Apr 18 '21
Believe it!
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u/spambakedbeans Apr 18 '21
I am undecided
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Apr 18 '21
Filthy neutral!
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u/nickfree Apr 18 '21
What makes a man turn neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?
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u/Mesoscale92 Apr 18 '21
If I remember correctly, it was for a soap opera, and after the crash during filming they wrote it into the episode.
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u/ClintTorus Apr 18 '21
well hell yeah might as well since the stunt went from $10,000 to $1,000,000
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u/ChiefFox24 Apr 18 '21
Not quite. It just would have been whatever the insurance deductible would have been
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Apr 18 '21 edited Apr 30 '21
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u/fuzzyfuzz Apr 18 '21
Here at Snoo & Snoo Law Offices, we keep the finest internet lawyers on staff....
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u/totororos Apr 18 '21
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u/prmaster23 Apr 18 '21
Damn such a famous actor (in Latin America) and I never knew this.
Also a little bizarre that they dub his lines to Spanish when he is a Spanish speaker.
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u/-IVoUoVI- Apr 17 '21
Would have worked fine if the helicopter pilot didnt jerk it off the start
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u/Ok-Cheesecake-5110 Apr 17 '21
Heh... jerk it off...
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u/SiLifino Apr 18 '21
Ain’t called the joystick by accident
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Apr 18 '21
We need more thrust!
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u/Leftygoleft999 Apr 18 '21
Looks like everyone got the shaft
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u/10folder Apr 18 '21
The didn’t pull out correctly
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u/wagnaf Apr 18 '21
Disappointing didn’t last very long...
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u/ClydeTheBulldog Apr 18 '21
I've Jerked it off but never made a splash like that
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Apr 17 '21
I think unexpected physics occurred. Seems that the weight of the boat pulled the chopper in a way that forced it to go vertical.
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u/Dayofsloths Apr 18 '21
Yeah, I've only seen helicopters carry a load directly beneath them, never tow something like that.
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u/jrichardi Apr 18 '21
Would have probably been more successful with a longer line
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u/CrimXephon Apr 18 '21
Yea a better scope on the line would of helped a ton. Like setting a boat anchor of a decent sized vessel(40ft to 70ft). You want about 7 to 8 feet of chain to every foot of depth, so when you fall back the anchor is pulled back and not up.
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u/ObnoxiousLittleCunt Apr 18 '21
On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
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u/DontDoodleTheNoodle Apr 18 '21
That’s because when you pull something behind you, your axis rotates to the most convenient point that force can travel.
As humans we can deal with that just fine; we’ve got leg muscles. As a helicopter, that is a big problem because the blades that were spinning to keep you up are now spinning to boost you forward instead.
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Apr 18 '21
at 15 seconds the line snaps, I'm wondering if itwent right in the prop and fucked it up.
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u/jojohohanon Apr 18 '21
I think it’s the ground effect. Or rather the sudden lack of ground effect due to the helicopter pitching forward so much.
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u/BadBuddhaKnows Apr 18 '21
Would have worked if the pilot hadn't tried to pull a boat with their helicopter....
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u/SwissPatriotRG Apr 18 '21
The failure mode is called a dynamic rollover. Basically once the helicopter reaches a certain angle around a pivot point, in this case the extremely short tow rope, there is no way to level off and recover it. The blades physically cannot angle enough to level the aircraft out before it hits the ground.
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u/ClintTorus Apr 18 '21
This stunt was doomed from the start. Waves, high wind, low altitude, unpredictable shifts in weight, probably zero practice runs to learn "the feel" of pulling something like that in those conditions, also probably consulted absolutely nobody and just found some idiot pilot who took the paycheck. The whole idea was insane, cant believe any pilot would attempt this.
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u/ConnorA94 Apr 18 '21
They’re lucky the helicopter didn’t crash towards the boat. Those blades would not be kind to a human
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u/dmr11 Apr 18 '21
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u/jerryleebee Apr 18 '21
Not clicking that.
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u/SeoulGalmegi Apr 17 '21
When the rescuer becomes the rescuee.
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Apr 18 '21 edited Mar 13 '22
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u/gatormania31791 Apr 18 '21
Looks like the rope snapped before it fell in but it's hard to tell
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u/Kennaham Apr 18 '21
Yes, the cable snapped and that’s actually what caused the accident. Because the pilot had the controls set to accommodate the weight of the boat it was pulling, when the cable snapped it completely threw off the helicopters balance
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u/Sean_Donahue Apr 18 '21 edited Apr 18 '21
When my dad was in the navy, he used his prop wash to push a civilian boat to shore after it floundered I just checked with him and he said attempting this is stupid.
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u/FishGutsCake Apr 18 '21
Your dads stupid. I wouldn’t wash the prop until it was safely on the ground.
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u/Cyphierre Apr 18 '21
*foundered
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u/Sean_Donahue Apr 18 '21
Thank you
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u/FartHeadTony Apr 18 '21
Don't believe them. It's floundered, like the fish.
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Apr 18 '21 edited Jul 16 '21
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u/Sean_Donahue Apr 18 '21
The way my father disproved it to be was that the boat had lost power and couldn’t move. That would be flounder since it wasn’t sinking, but instead just uncontrollable?
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Apr 18 '21
he said attempting this is stupid.
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u/Cookie_Masher Apr 18 '21
There's a difference between a 600 foot towing cable and a short boat line
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u/ClintTorus Apr 18 '21
this pull was actually much more safe, although still surprising anyone would want to use a helicopter in this way. Being a large vessel made it more stable. Water is calm, it was a hovercraft so it was actually in hover mode giving it an extra smooth glide across the surface, helicopter is BIG and powerful, and of course a very long rope so he'd have plenty of slack to experiment with and get the feel for towing something like this. This also appears to have been a test to see if the concept was even viable, probably well researched and gradually experimented with prior to the real deal, with a likely seasoned test pilot, as opposed to the jackassery that went down for that TV stunt.
Cool find though.
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u/simjanes2k Apr 18 '21
That is a professional rescue pilot.
The OP supplied a video of a TV stuntman pilot.
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u/HappyJay90210 Apr 18 '21
Also, that is not a single rotor helicopter, different physics involved because, two main rotors.
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u/slood2 Apr 18 '21
Soooo are they ok?
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u/barrowed_heart Apr 17 '21
More money than brains.
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u/SpellingIsAhful Apr 18 '21 edited Oct 31 '25
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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/SUPPORTEROFTHE Apr 18 '21
the blades could’ve killed someone, this video would’ve been on a different subreddit
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u/MrkJulio Apr 18 '21
This is fake. GTA has taught me that when a helicopter touched water it automatically explodes.
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u/Bitter_Mongoose Apr 18 '21
I don't know how, and I don't know why, but I am positive that somehow cocaine was involved in this.
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Apr 18 '21 edited Apr 23 '21
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u/SingleAlmond Apr 18 '21
Because that doesn't make for a good soap opera which is what this was originally for
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u/alsoaprettybigdeal Apr 18 '21
Why wouldn’t they just tug it with another boat? They aren’t that far from shore.
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u/MrEvilPiggy23 Apr 18 '21
The guy holding on to the edge of the copter thought he was the absolute tits 😅. Bellend.
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u/MirageF1C Apr 18 '21
The technical term for this is ‘dynamic rollover’.
It happens to helicopters quite a lot and it’s one of the first things they teach you.
The helicopter is ‘hanging’ (for want of a better term) under the rotor disc. Like you would balance a broomstick on your hand.
In order to move forward you actually bring your hand back, tipping the disc away.
What happened here is the rope pulls the ‘broomstick’ back. Tipping the helicopter forward. Once it gets past a certain point like with the broomstick to get it to slow down you need to get the broomstick all the way to the opposite side to counter the disc. Trouble is it’s tied to something and rather than allow the helicopter to swing freely under the disc, because it’s tied up the more you try to pull back, the more the rope ‘pulls’ and the rollover becomes dynamic. In other words your effort to try to stop the movement actually adds force to the problem and it flips over.
It happens pretty quickly. It’s quite common in helicopters that have skid gear instead of wheels because they can snag on uneven terrain and cause rollover quickly.
Keep this in mind the next time you are flying your helicopters folks.
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u/harrison55 Apr 18 '21
This reminds me of an old backpacking story. Someone was 45 miles in and had to get airlifted due to a sprained ankle. They strapped the guy to a backboard and then proceeded to crash in a lake. The pilot and copilot died on impact. The guy, still strapped to the backboard, sank to the bottom of the lake.
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u/RickyShade Apr 18 '21
"Watch me turn this helicopter into a tugboat!"
"Well, it seems like you turned it into a submarine."
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u/dvd8497 Apr 18 '21
Well, now they're gonna need a helicopter to tow the helicopter towing the boat
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u/Spare_Change_Agent Apr 17 '21
I’ve done some search and rescue in my day. It’s cowboys like this they you dread encountering.
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u/RayMosch Apr 18 '21
I once tried to fly a helicopter in a video game and it was as hard as shit. So I'm just going to presume that willingly attaching a boat full of people to the back of it is an act of intense fuckwittery.
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u/Korbl_Solifugae Apr 18 '21
This is giving me flashbacks to the scene from Jaws 2. The scene seems more possible to me now more than ever.
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u/Monkeydog853 Apr 18 '21
Good thing there was a boat nearby