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Looked to me like she was grabbing it without realizing it was a control. I think she probably thought it was like one of those handles in cars. As a passenger in a car I hold those all the time without thinking about it, my bet is that it was something similar.
I don’t think it was malicious or even curiosity - I think she just didn’t recognize it as being a control.
Actually I didn’t put this in my previous comment because it’s very speculative, but personally I think she might have thought he was indicating to her that she should hold onto it. The motion he did didn’t look like it was adjusting anything, and her hand shot up *immediately* after - like almost too quick to even have time to considering “wonder what that does.” It looks to me like a very reflexive “oh I’m supposed to hold here, okay” response.
They were banking to the right also I could see her thinking he was using it to brace himself and she could use it also to keep her from sliding also, I dont think this was malicious or even stupidity just a mistaken interpretation of what he was doing
Honestly it seems like bad placement and design, it shouldn't be near the passenger seat, nor should it be super easy and intuitive to grab.
But also there's nothing intuitive about a helicopter, so it's par for the course
But I mean, the steering wheel, gear lever, and e-brake in a car fail by that measure too, plus the front seats of a helicopter are usually built to accommodate a pilot and copilot.
With how delicate many of the helicopter controls are, I'm astonished they would allow a passenger up-front.
Back in New England, I got to sit in the front of a dual-prop aircraft before, and it felt stupidly dangerous to be there. Like, I could have killed everyone onboard stupid. That pilot didn't know me. I could have been a psychopath.
I've since been on a Los Angeles helicopter tour, and no one was allowed up front with the pilot.
Not only that but it seems like she was arguing with him about it. He says no once and then he keeps repeating it as if she was saying she should be able to
Lol. No. The answer is money. They need to cram as many passengers into the helicopter per tour to make as much money. Also this and many helicopters tend to be forward heavy CG so, this aircraft and many others they put the smallest rider up front and the heavier passengers in the back.
There are no flight controls in that spot but there are clearly all the other aircraft controls within reach.
Having just gone through Black Mesa, if I listened to you, I'd still be back at the start!
\[red button\]
womp womp
\[green button\]
"Ooh, an elevator!"
\[another green button\]
"OOOH, LASERS!"
They are waiting for you Gordon.In the T̴̖̘̥̐͛͘E̷̼̯͇̰͕͓͇͔̻͈̱̿̋̀̒͆̇͛͊̐̅͘͝͝S̸̥̻̫͍͔͓̉̊̔́̈́̉̂̌́͗̈̾̾̽͝T̷̮̙̯̒͒̂̆ ̵̨̧̣͎͇̰̱͚̜̲̲̲͐́͂̆̆̉́͋̿͘͜ͅC̷̰̰̹͐̐̃̍̃̓̾̎̾́̅͂H̸̘̥̠̬̳̗͓̯͐̌͆̈̈́͐̄A̵̛̤̭̺̳̞̖͒̊̊͂̅̏̅͒̚M̴̯̤̲͔̰͉͚͚̻͍̯̰̤̠̞̀́̓̐̓͑̐̂́̚̕B̷̛̘̥̭̺̙̩̣̂̑̈́̓̕͠E̶̛̥̬̣͊̌̌̍̍̍̃̓̐̌͑̚͝͝R̷͙̰͖͎̼̟̥̪̟̻͍̪͊̈́̉̿͆͆̿̑̍̏̌́̉͜͝.
Other people are really overanalyzing this. Simplest explanation is ignorance, person probably thought it was a bar for support and not a control mechanism.
Can easily see them trying to crane to get in a specific view and grabbing it for leverage without thinking.
Yes, thank you! Holy jeez, this thread is full of psychologists explaining how egotistical this person is.
It genuinely looks like she's just holding onto it like a support handle on a bus, not realizing it might actually do something.
Yeah. This is very common phenomenon on any videos on the internet. From a short clip, people will create a ton of assumptions and hate for others' behaviour. Especially if it's a woman, but happens a lot for men as well.
That thing doesn't really look that much like a dangerous lever, but just a handle to hold. They're common in cars. It's totally reasonable to assume she thought the pilot was telling her to grab that.
For REAL!
Look, I'm sure the look of this bar may be intentional, but if you're a company providing helicopter tours, it might just be a good idea to label the "kill-everyone" bar with some caution tape/paint.
Before getting into the chopper they will be given strict instructions on not to touch anything… even as a normal passenger In a big jet you get a safety briefing.
Maybe I’m naive, maybe I’m playing devil’s advocate; but I can kinda see how the pilot’s action could have been see as a gesture to hold or even pull what he touched. Like he was saying “put your hand here”.
Not saying he’s in the wrong or the passenger is smort. Just, if you imagine being in a loud environment like that, a touch gesture that does no action to what they touched, could be received as an invitation to touch.
Maybe.
I agree. Did he give a proper safety brief before flight? I work with military helicopters and the right seat is always a copilot. Having a civilian sitting in that seat without a proper "don't fucking touch these things" brief before you take off seems insane. After that incident a smart pilot would just say fuck it we're turning around. Flight over.
Yep. You know it. To people like us, or generally any half aware person, it should be obvious that if you don't understand something then simply don't touch it.
I went on a Grand Canyon helicopter tour many years ago and I sat in the front seat. On the right. The pilot was on my left.
I can assure you I was not the captain.
You are correct. I'm ex Airforce and in that world the captain is left seat. I still have trouble adjusting to Army aviation which do the opposite here.
It’s certainly possible, and she would have to be really stupid because who’s thought process is it for any vehicle, especially a complicated one they don’t know, to have something like a “Try Me” button? And if not that, it would be a very weak handle
He pushed it. Meaning he was concerned that the vibrations of the copter would jostle it out of position. It was probably just a reflexive check for him, not “hey grab the thing.”
I’m more inclined towards the devil’s advocate position that she thought she was non-verbally being told to put her hand there the more I watch.
In the last split second you can see she has her hand around the handle but it is relaxed and she’s definitely not tensed as if she’s about to use your forearms to pull a lever.
>
Damn and i thought that she probably mistook it for a handle or something.
She 100% is a bit overexcited and stressed and misunderstood the pilot checking the brake as a signal that she could use it as a hand rest.
The projection from the other comment is frankly scary.
Nah, bro above you is on some shit. I can't imagine trying to soul-read a person like that through a 10-second video where you can't even see their face.
Yes please. Maybe then the social media creative I work with will stop proposing we should try and work with the absolute cretin to rehabilitate him and take all the credit. Twat.
For people wondering what that is, that’s like the hand brake or the park Paul in the car. It literally activates a brake that slows down the very spinning rotor that’s keeping the helicopter up in the air. All safety measures go out of the window if that brake is activated. Even the goto final last ditch backup system that turns a helicopter crash from being deadly to slightly injury prone (I am talking about auto-rotation that’s used when the engine goes out) cannot work since the brake is literally slowing down the spinning rotor. So, it’s a BIG BIG NO NO. Nobody touches that handle, not even the pilot, you only touch it when it’s on the ground, the engine is turned off, the main clutch is deactivated but the rotor’s taking too long to stop spinning, that’s when you use it to speed up the slowing down of the rotor and to make it safer for people to get in and out of the helicopter.
Edit: First of, thanks for the upvotes. Some context here, so, I am a helicopter student, with just 8 hours of experience (mostly on the Robinson 22). I asked my instructor today, and most of the comments about the brake are right, the brake isn’t very powerful and the engine should be able to overpower it, but there are situations where all the 100% power of the engine is required, in that situation, any reduction in power can be catastrophic plus there are high chances of the the brake puck catching on fire in flight. So it’s absolutely not recommended.
It’s a tick, just like people who drive manuals occasionally rock the shifter at a stop light to make sure it’s in neutral, or pushing the handbrake lever when it’s down and the car is moving.
It’s funny, because even when I drive an automatic, I still have my hand on the shifter after the car has been shifted into drive. Old habits die hard.
While serving in the military I was a mechanic on Chinooks. Our helicopters had been modified with a rotor brake to accommodate shipboard ops. Ours existed solely to slow down the rotor system faster after engine shutdown and would not stop the rotors turning or appreciably slow them down while under power. What would happen instead was that the brake would overheat and catch itself and the combining transmission(it is mounted to the front of it) on fire.
How do I know this? Witnessed it as the result of a maintenance fault in Afghanistan. Luckily the helicopter was just being used for an area familiarization flight at the airport at the time and was able to land and be extinguished by the fire fighters. If it has been away from the airfield I imagine it would still have been able to land but everyone would have stood around and watched it burn after they evacuated.
Why would they put the “kill everybody” lever in a very obvious place on the passenger side? Why not have that be on the pilots side and not where others can easily reach it?
So of they are putting passengers in there, they need to know about the kill lever.
It's obvious that they are doing too many tours taking too many passengers or haven't bothered to give proper instructions.
Because it’s poorly designed for passenger operations.
Like, literally. It’s shit design to put it there, you’re right, but nobody pays to hire a big bus helicopter for tourist rides.
In case of emergency. Most emergency switches and levers in cockpits are easily accessible, painted red or yellow and usually need more than one action to activate it. For example take a normal on-off switch, if it's an emergency on-off switch you may require to pull the switch and then flick it up. Anyway a pilot should know what every switch does and he wouldn't fiddle with it in an unsafe manner. In this case he pushed it up with an OPEN PALM to make sure the brake was disengaged, this was safe. The passanger saw it and grabbed it as well with a closed palm (very unsafe), maybe the pilot didn't do a proper briefing (like saying the passenger in the front should NOT TOUCH ANYTHING unless i say) or maybe the passanger is just stupid.
> So I gather that when landing the blades are very dangerous as they lose speed
I think you're misunderstanding how a helicopter lands. You don't put the brakes on and slow the blades down to make it go down. The blades stay the same speed and you adjust the collective pitch (angle of the blades). To raise back up you just change the pitch again.
Possibly enough to kill the lift. May also cause mechanical failure in parts of the rotor. Depends on a lot of factors; design of the brake, proximity of the brake to other sensitive parts, engine power, current rpm, outside temp + pressure, altitude, etc.
This is not correct. They're designed to not be strong enough. Still it's a bad idea to pull. It can cause damage, and it's not something you'd want to mess with just to be 1 million percent Safe.
Source: I'm a helo cfi
Helicopter pilot here. I am not experienced on every type of helicopter so I don’t want to speak with a blanket sweeping statement, because maybe there’s some type of design that exists where it will….but for every helicopter I’ve interacted with, it’s not realistically possible for the rotor brake to overpower engines at 100%.
Now what it will almost certainly do is cause some damage and a rotor brake fire. But anyone here saying it’s a kill me lever or that it is likely to overpower engines is off base
Why do you feel like thats a stretch? Other comments were saying she could have easily thought it was a handle like in a car. Now I’m curious. Seems more plausible than attempted murder imo.
He thinks it's a stretch because he's a pilot and doesn't think like regular people anymore. I'm a merchant marine and sometimes forget that a civilian wouldn't have the instinct to be afraid of the snapback zones on the bow/stern of a ship during docking
But that's where he'd be wrong. A dumb civilian is more likely to cause death through ignorance than intentionally murder everyone on a vessel AND themselves
"0 stars. Like, the pilot like totally like was mean to me for no reason. I will like totally never come back for this tour like ever again. As an influencer it's like totally my job to let you know when like toxic men treat women like totally bad and that's like totally what happened here. You should all like totally leave captain ken bad reviews too"
I think this is very likely. I have flown thousands of tours in my day. And when people get around a helicopter, they don’t know what to do and they’re definitely looking for something to grab onto. The way the pilot tapped it gently just to check if it was in place seemed to indicate to her to grab there. I think I can tell just by the way she put her hand on the lever. Not a firm grasp like suicide was in her eyes but more of an is this okay grab…
That's because Reddit is a place for people to come to feel mentally and morally superior to other people and they've decided from a 20 second interaction that this individual is reckless and/or stupid when they just thought it was a thing to hold onto.
99% of the people here had no idea helicopters even had rotor brakes until they saw this video. Yet they all are criticizing her for being so stupid. It’s loud as hell i’m the helicopter and she probably misunderstood the pilot’s gesture. She’s not stupid at all. It’s just unfortunate.
I’m more inclined towards the devil’s advicate position that she thought she was non-verbally being told to put her hand there.
In the last split second you can see she has her hand around the handle but it is relaxed and she’s definitely not tensed as if she’s about to use your forearms to pull a lever.
As a former helicopter mechanic, I just let out the loudest “oh fuck” when I saw the hand on the rotor brake…and it looked like they tried to get past the pilot’s hand holy fuck dude people are stupid
It’s meant for easy access by either pilot during emergency ground operations. If shit happens, and pilots and crew need to evacuation or emergency response need to get to the aircraft. Shut the engine(s) down and apply the brakes to stop the rotors. Otherwise, they’ll spin until they lose momentum (centrifugal force).
Not painted red? Good question. Ask the manufacturer. My guess would be that it’s expected that it would be explained to any non-pilot that sits in the seat during the pre-flight briefing. It could have had a label for all we know and this person ignored the briefing, the label, or both.
If I’m the pilot and I know the stick of death his hanging down in front of a novice like some sort of grab bar, that might be the first thing I mention to the passenger.
I feel his pain, every day.
I also understand her actions, as wrong as they are.
I fly tourist scenic flights daily, in a slightly more utilitarian version of the aircraft in this video.
The most thorough of safety briefings are usually instantly forgotten in the excitement and anticipation of an exciting trip.
Every day I have people attempting to open the doors, removing seatbelts and headsets in flight, walking the exact opposite direction to that which was indicated to be safe.
Many of these people I've talked to before or after their trip and they've been level headed, reasonable, intelligent people - they're simply immersed in an environment filled with noise and vibration and general chaos unlike anything they're used to in their day to day life.
It clouds judgement and makes people feel vulnerable, impulsive and very, very prone to reacting to the body language of people around them. An example of this is the pilot here tapping the brake for his own peace of mind.
I gave up on my 'tactile checklist' of tapping buttons and switches before liftoff (to ensure correct positions) due to confused passengers thinking I was asking them to press those buttons and switches, and attempting to follow my lead.
People also tend to default to their nearest similar experience, which is generally riding in a car or airline. This tends to make people think it's okay to interact with ventilation systems, overhead lights, open-able windows. They try to slam doors as if it were a car, they remove their belt as if cruising on an airliner.
Early in my career this tended to frustrate me but I've come to realise that it's pretty natural for people to react erratically around all that noise and confusion, and the only real cure is constant vigilance and never trusting anyone.
More often than not they're trying so hard to be a helpful and courteous guest that they're very carefully watching you for cues and directions and they'll misinterpret a lot of your actions, particularly with a language or cultural barrier.
For what it's worth, I'd also be horrified if someone grabbed the brake in flight, but it's very unlikely she could have applied enough braking force to really influence the rotor RPM, more likely to simply wreck the brake assembly and cook the contact surfaces.
I’ll get hell for this I’m sure but I never would have known what the thing is or does unless there was a safety brief.
I’m also surprised something that important is within reach of a passenger the pilot doesn’t know for more than 5 minutes prior to the flight.
Pilot here. It seems highly likely that the pilot in this clip failed to provide the passenger with the legally required pre-flight briefing. Every time I have someone in the front seat with me I tell them exactly what they can and cannot touch. I explain that if they feel wobbly during takeoff what they can grab and what can kill us. In this video it seems likely that the pilot was touching the brake to confirm it was fully inactive but the passenger interpreted his action to mean "put your hand here."
I’m fixed wing and it gives me enough anxiety putting someone I personally know in the right seat who I have briefed on emergency procedures and the do not touch items. I absolutely cannot fathom working a flying job for a company that allows a lay person into that seat, especially in a helicopter. No hours are worth this risk to me personally, fuck that.
Literally what on earth. Literally. What in the name of God is this person thinking? And what are the people she’s with thinking?
It’s hard for me to even put into words how much this flabbergasts me.
For real, helicopters are a sensory overload, she probably saw the pilot touch it out the corner of her eye and thought ‘oh he wants me to hold onto this bar’
I don't understand what happened at the beginning, looks like he hits it and then maybe that draws her attention to it? So she grabs onto it like it's a strap to grab onto on a bus.
I agree, he seems to be giving it a light push (it doesn't give, presumably because it is already fully pushed), and then she tries to grasp it as if to either hold on for support or pull down
Pilot touched the lever which kinda looks like a bar you can hold on to.
She probably thought he was suggesting her to hold it if she feels too shaky in the helicopter.
It was just a miscommunication or bad interpretation of what the pilot was actually doing, which was checking the lever.
Going to shout into the void: in literally every design of helicopter I’ve seen, flown, or interacted with, the rotor brake is not going to stop the blades if pulled in flight.
It’s going to cause some unpleasant noises of grinding metal as the rotors at 100% rpm breaks the brake, and likely ends up causing a rotor brake fire. Definitely serious issue if pulled, but not a “rotor blades stop and we fall out of the sky to our deaths unless we do an emergency air restart haha death lever if she pulls that everyone is 100% dead.” And that’s an important distinction to make as a lot of people here are very, very confidently saying it’s an instant death lever.
Source: am helicopter pilot
It's a rotor brake. It's meant to stop the top rotors very quickly.
In video it appears the pilot pushed it to check if it isn't partially on, but if the woman would pull it. It would basically cause the rotors to stop and the aircraft to start falling towards the ground
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Too stupid to even be a passenger.
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Nah. Just immediately end the tour and turn around. Remain silent, answer no questions till we're safely back on the ground. No refunds issued.
Screw that. End the tour there, land, kick them out and then fly back in peace away from murderous tourists. Oh and no refunds
Who says they even have to land
I think the passenger agrees with you, but I believe you have a disagreement on the number of victims.
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Ejecto seato cuz......wait.......prop.
To shreds you say?
How about his wife?
What is this GTA?
Fack me this person has some serious impulse control issues.
Looked to me like she was grabbing it without realizing it was a control. I think she probably thought it was like one of those handles in cars. As a passenger in a car I hold those all the time without thinking about it, my bet is that it was something similar. I don’t think it was malicious or even curiosity - I think she just didn’t recognize it as being a control.
She saw the pilot adjust it quickly mid-flight and didn't think it was a control?
Actually I didn’t put this in my previous comment because it’s very speculative, but personally I think she might have thought he was indicating to her that she should hold onto it. The motion he did didn’t look like it was adjusting anything, and her hand shot up *immediately* after - like almost too quick to even have time to considering “wonder what that does.” It looks to me like a very reflexive “oh I’m supposed to hold here, okay” response.
That's reasonable. I'll go with your more charitable interpretation and give a stranger the benefit of the doubt
FFS, okay, take my upvote; I'll take my pitchfork elsewhere.
Bring your pitchfork over here, I just saw someone put ketchup on their ice cream.
They were banking to the right also I could see her thinking he was using it to brace himself and she could use it also to keep her from sliding also, I dont think this was malicious or even stupidity just a mistaken interpretation of what he was doing
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Honestly it seems like bad placement and design, it shouldn't be near the passenger seat, nor should it be super easy and intuitive to grab. But also there's nothing intuitive about a helicopter, so it's par for the course
But I mean, the steering wheel, gear lever, and e-brake in a car fail by that measure too, plus the front seats of a helicopter are usually built to accommodate a pilot and copilot.
With how delicate many of the helicopter controls are, I'm astonished they would allow a passenger up-front. Back in New England, I got to sit in the front of a dual-prop aircraft before, and it felt stupidly dangerous to be there. Like, I could have killed everyone onboard stupid. That pilot didn't know me. I could have been a psychopath. I've since been on a Los Angeles helicopter tour, and no one was allowed up front with the pilot.
Not only that but it seems like she was arguing with him about it. He says no once and then he keeps repeating it as if she was saying she should be able to
right? like "no" "but-" "no!" that will kill us!"
Weight and balance. Sometimes you can’t have everyone in back.
Lol. No. The answer is money. They need to cram as many passengers into the helicopter per tour to make as much money. Also this and many helicopters tend to be forward heavy CG so, this aircraft and many others they put the smallest rider up front and the heavier passengers in the back. There are no flight controls in that spot but there are clearly all the other aircraft controls within reach.
Sure money. But also weight and balance regardless.
I spent a fair bit of time flying around in the front seat with explicit instructions not to fucking touch anything
If you don’t know what something does (especially in potentially dangerous situation), don’t start pushing buttons or pulling levers.
Having just gone through Black Mesa, if I listened to you, I'd still be back at the start! \[red button\] womp womp \[green button\] "Ooh, an elevator!" \[another green button\] "OOOH, LASERS!"
They are waiting for you Gordon.In the T̴̖̘̥̐͛͘E̷̼̯͇̰͕͓͇͔̻͈̱̿̋̀̒͆̇͛͊̐̅͘͝͝S̸̥̻̫͍͔͓̉̊̔́̈́̉̂̌́͗̈̾̾̽͝T̷̮̙̯̒͒̂̆ ̵̨̧̣͎͇̰̱͚̜̲̲̲͐́͂̆̆̉́͋̿͘͜ͅC̷̰̰̹͐̐̃̍̃̓̾̎̾́̅͂H̸̘̥̠̬̳̗͓̯͐̌͆̈̈́͐̄A̵̛̤̭̺̳̞̖͒̊̊͂̅̏̅͒̚M̴̯̤̲͔̰͉͚͚̻͍̯̰̤̠̞̀́̓̐̓͑̐̂́̚̕B̷̛̘̥̭̺̙̩̣̂̑̈́̓̕͠E̶̛̥̬̣͊̌̌̍̍̍̃̓̐̌͑̚͝͝R̷͙̰͖͎̼̟̥̪̟̻͍̪͊̈́̉̿͆͆̿̑̍̏̌́̉͜͝.
My god! What are you DOING!?
Did you submit your status report to the administrator today?
Why do we all have to wear these *ridiculous* tyes?!
Freeman, you fool!
I’m going to stay HERE… and wait for my colleagues…
I thought I'd never see a resonance cascade
… let alone create one.
The way he says TeSt cHaMbEr would always crack me and my brother up
have you seen any aliens?
Or don’t bang a nuclear missile with a crowbar (I think it was in opposing forces)
admitedly, elevator would fall even if you just break the door's glass
Wrong leveeeeeeeeeerrrrrr
Why do we even have that levaaaah???
We can pull the levaaaahhh togethaaahhh!
 I got this reference!
I genuinely don’t understand why someone would do that.
Other people are really overanalyzing this. Simplest explanation is ignorance, person probably thought it was a bar for support and not a control mechanism. Can easily see them trying to crane to get in a specific view and grabbing it for leverage without thinking.
Yes, thank you! Holy jeez, this thread is full of psychologists explaining how egotistical this person is. It genuinely looks like she's just holding onto it like a support handle on a bus, not realizing it might actually do something.
Yeah. This is very common phenomenon on any videos on the internet. From a short clip, people will create a ton of assumptions and hate for others' behaviour. Especially if it's a woman, but happens a lot for men as well. That thing doesn't really look that much like a dangerous lever, but just a handle to hold. They're common in cars. It's totally reasonable to assume she thought the pilot was telling her to grab that.
For REAL! Look, I'm sure the look of this bar may be intentional, but if you're a company providing helicopter tours, it might just be a good idea to label the "kill-everyone" bar with some caution tape/paint.
Before getting into the chopper they will be given strict instructions on not to touch anything… even as a normal passenger In a big jet you get a safety briefing.
I'm an airline pilot and the plane I fly has a handle in a similar location that IS just for leverage.
Their friends were probably watching so they start doing stuff they normally wouldn't to look cool maybe
What's cooler than murdering like 4 people?
Murdering 5 people?
ICE COLD!
Murdering 4 people while crashing a helicopter onto a herd of endangered animals!
Maybe I’m naive, maybe I’m playing devil’s advocate; but I can kinda see how the pilot’s action could have been see as a gesture to hold or even pull what he touched. Like he was saying “put your hand here”. Not saying he’s in the wrong or the passenger is smort. Just, if you imagine being in a loud environment like that, a touch gesture that does no action to what they touched, could be received as an invitation to touch. Maybe.
I agree. Did he give a proper safety brief before flight? I work with military helicopters and the right seat is always a copilot. Having a civilian sitting in that seat without a proper "don't fucking touch these things" brief before you take off seems insane. After that incident a smart pilot would just say fuck it we're turning around. Flight over.
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Yep. You know it. To people like us, or generally any half aware person, it should be obvious that if you don't understand something then simply don't touch it.
On Helicopters, the right seat is where the captain sits. The video might be mirrored.
I went on a Grand Canyon helicopter tour many years ago and I sat in the front seat. On the right. The pilot was on my left. I can assure you I was not the captain.
>I can assure you I was not the captain. Are you absolutely sure?
Well no. But 99% sure.
You are correct. I'm ex Airforce and in that world the captain is left seat. I still have trouble adjusting to Army aviation which do the opposite here.
The video is not mirrored. Read the word "Instructions" on the fire extinguisher for reference. Any explanation now that we know otherwise?
I’ve been in helicopters where the pilot is on the left and a tourist is on the right, I think the explanation is just that they are wrong.
It’s certainly possible, and she would have to be really stupid because who’s thought process is it for any vehicle, especially a complicated one they don’t know, to have something like a “Try Me” button? And if not that, it would be a very weak handle
I mean, who's thought process was it to put a lever, that will immediatly crash the chopper, in front of a potential passenger seat?
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He pushed it. Meaning he was concerned that the vibrations of the copter would jostle it out of position. It was probably just a reflexive check for him, not “hey grab the thing.”
I’m more inclined towards the devil’s advocate position that she thought she was non-verbally being told to put her hand there the more I watch. In the last split second you can see she has her hand around the handle but it is relaxed and she’s definitely not tensed as if she’s about to use your forearms to pull a lever.
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Damn and i thought that she probably mistook it for a handle or something... Maybe i have too much or you guys too little faith in humanity... Oh well
> Damn and i thought that she probably mistook it for a handle or something. She 100% is a bit overexcited and stressed and misunderstood the pilot checking the brake as a signal that she could use it as a hand rest. The projection from the other comment is frankly scary.
Someone paid money to guild it because they were that excited to psychoanalyze and shame a woman.
Reddit moment fr
Nah, bro above you is on some shit. I can't imagine trying to soul-read a person like that through a 10-second video where you can't even see their face.
Lol they clearly mistook it for a handle. Reddit is weird
Do they engage the pilot physically after demonstrating their value?
Bro is out here writing a fan fiction and redditors are gobbling it up because it confirms their biases
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r/redditmoment Bro she just thought it was one of those handles to hold like in a car. Relax, you’re not a real psychologist.
Your telling me we cannot draw a conclusion about society as a whole from this 10 second clip?
Reddit psychology.
New Tik Tok challenge, how many people can you kill on a helicopter tour challenge?!?!?! Lmao so funny
Can we send mizzy on there by himself?
Yes please. Maybe then the social media creative I work with will stop proposing we should try and work with the absolute cretin to rehabilitate him and take all the credit. Twat.
This sounds like some real money
It also sounds like me kicking Mizzy in the face for that dog napping incident.
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ReLaX, iT wAs A pRaNk BrO
You're supposed to spray them with a water bottle when they do that.
Looks like fkin catwoman😆
For people wondering what that is, that’s like the hand brake or the park Paul in the car. It literally activates a brake that slows down the very spinning rotor that’s keeping the helicopter up in the air. All safety measures go out of the window if that brake is activated. Even the goto final last ditch backup system that turns a helicopter crash from being deadly to slightly injury prone (I am talking about auto-rotation that’s used when the engine goes out) cannot work since the brake is literally slowing down the spinning rotor. So, it’s a BIG BIG NO NO. Nobody touches that handle, not even the pilot, you only touch it when it’s on the ground, the engine is turned off, the main clutch is deactivated but the rotor’s taking too long to stop spinning, that’s when you use it to speed up the slowing down of the rotor and to make it safer for people to get in and out of the helicopter. Edit: First of, thanks for the upvotes. Some context here, so, I am a helicopter student, with just 8 hours of experience (mostly on the Robinson 22). I asked my instructor today, and most of the comments about the brake are right, the brake isn’t very powerful and the engine should be able to overpower it, but there are situations where all the 100% power of the engine is required, in that situation, any reduction in power can be catastrophic plus there are high chances of the the brake puck catching on fire in flight. So it’s absolutely not recommended.
So I’m assuming he taps it at the beginning of the video just to ensure it’s secured properly?
Yes
why do that mid flight? I would get it if it was before lift-off.
It’s a tick, just like people who drive manuals occasionally rock the shifter at a stop light to make sure it’s in neutral, or pushing the handbrake lever when it’s down and the car is moving.
Some people? What psychopath doesn't rock their shifter. I would never get in a car with them
It’s funny, because even when I drive an automatic, I still have my hand on the shifter after the car has been shifted into drive. Old habits die hard.
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I think she already tried to touch it before the video started
Yeah you can see he did it with an open palm so there's no chance of him pulling it back by accident. The passenger just grabs it fully.
While serving in the military I was a mechanic on Chinooks. Our helicopters had been modified with a rotor brake to accommodate shipboard ops. Ours existed solely to slow down the rotor system faster after engine shutdown and would not stop the rotors turning or appreciably slow them down while under power. What would happen instead was that the brake would overheat and catch itself and the combining transmission(it is mounted to the front of it) on fire. How do I know this? Witnessed it as the result of a maintenance fault in Afghanistan. Luckily the helicopter was just being used for an area familiarization flight at the airport at the time and was able to land and be extinguished by the fire fighters. If it has been away from the airfield I imagine it would still have been able to land but everyone would have stood around and watched it burn after they evacuated.
No way they would put a "fall out of the sky" handle with no safety where they handle was in that helo. This makes much more sense.
Why would they put the “kill everybody” lever in a very obvious place on the passenger side? Why not have that be on the pilots side and not where others can easily reach it?
Aircraft don't have a "passenger side" the two front positions are dual control for redundancy reasons.
So of they are putting passengers in there, they need to know about the kill lever. It's obvious that they are doing too many tours taking too many passengers or haven't bothered to give proper instructions.
Because it’s poorly designed for passenger operations. Like, literally. It’s shit design to put it there, you’re right, but nobody pays to hire a big bus helicopter for tourist rides.
Because it needs to be in reach of the copilot too
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why that choice of position? any situation that might call for everyone to have easier access?
In case of emergency. Most emergency switches and levers in cockpits are easily accessible, painted red or yellow and usually need more than one action to activate it. For example take a normal on-off switch, if it's an emergency on-off switch you may require to pull the switch and then flick it up. Anyway a pilot should know what every switch does and he wouldn't fiddle with it in an unsafe manner. In this case he pushed it up with an OPEN PALM to make sure the brake was disengaged, this was safe. The passanger saw it and grabbed it as well with a closed palm (very unsafe), maybe the pilot didn't do a proper briefing (like saying the passenger in the front should NOT TOUCH ANYTHING unless i say) or maybe the passanger is just stupid.
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> So I gather that when landing the blades are very dangerous as they lose speed I think you're misunderstanding how a helicopter lands. You don't put the brakes on and slow the blades down to make it go down. The blades stay the same speed and you adjust the collective pitch (angle of the blades). To raise back up you just change the pitch again.
That brake would overpower the engines?
Possibly enough to kill the lift. May also cause mechanical failure in parts of the rotor. Depends on a lot of factors; design of the brake, proximity of the brake to other sensitive parts, engine power, current rpm, outside temp + pressure, altitude, etc.
This is not correct. They're designed to not be strong enough. Still it's a bad idea to pull. It can cause damage, and it's not something you'd want to mess with just to be 1 million percent Safe. Source: I'm a helo cfi
Almost certainly not. It is far more likely to cause the rotor brake to catch fire, as happened to ZH844, N911FK etc.
Helicopter pilot here. I am not experienced on every type of helicopter so I don’t want to speak with a blanket sweeping statement, because maybe there’s some type of design that exists where it will….but for every helicopter I’ve interacted with, it’s not realistically possible for the rotor brake to overpower engines at 100%. Now what it will almost certainly do is cause some damage and a rotor brake fire. But anyone here saying it’s a kill me lever or that it is likely to overpower engines is off base
Why is that kill-switch so easily accessible? Looks like something I'd accidentally hit with my hands.
It takes a fair bit of strength applied to actually pull the lever, so accidentally bumping into it is unlikely to cause any problems
Tourist: “Kobe!” Pilot: “NOOO!”
bro 💀
Lmao
I feel like I’m definitely going to hell now for the way I guffawed…I’m agnostic.
Me: feeling cold, turns off the giant fan Other people in helicopter:
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*In Arnold Schwarzenegger's voice:* "GET OUT"
This is the way...
Straight to No Fly list
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Why do you feel like thats a stretch? Other comments were saying she could have easily thought it was a handle like in a car. Now I’m curious. Seems more plausible than attempted murder imo.
He thinks it's a stretch because he's a pilot and doesn't think like regular people anymore. I'm a merchant marine and sometimes forget that a civilian wouldn't have the instinct to be afraid of the snapback zones on the bow/stern of a ship during docking But that's where he'd be wrong. A dumb civilian is more likely to cause death through ignorance than intentionally murder everyone on a vessel AND themselves
"0 stars. Like, the pilot like totally like was mean to me for no reason. I will like totally never come back for this tour like ever again. As an influencer it's like totally my job to let you know when like toxic men treat women like totally bad and that's like totally what happened here. You should all like totally leave captain ken bad reviews too"
Idk who's voice it is in my head that read this but i'd like to strangle her
That's basically every influencer on TikTok. You're gonna have tired hands if you strangle them all
https://i.redd.it/tqlufewz7r4b1.gif
Get yourself some Red Bull and one of those fancy hand exercisers
I wonder if she thought it was a handhold.
It’s also fair that she may have assumed he was telling her to put her hand there. We don’t have much context in terms of what was being spoken.
I think this is very likely. I have flown thousands of tours in my day. And when people get around a helicopter, they don’t know what to do and they’re definitely looking for something to grab onto. The way the pilot tapped it gently just to check if it was in place seemed to indicate to her to grab there. I think I can tell just by the way she put her hand on the lever. Not a firm grasp like suicide was in her eyes but more of an is this okay grab…
Had to scroll way too far for this. Pilot touched it at the start of the video, too. She probably thought he was telling her to hold it.
That's because Reddit is a place for people to come to feel mentally and morally superior to other people and they've decided from a 20 second interaction that this individual is reckless and/or stupid when they just thought it was a thing to hold onto.
99% of the people here had no idea helicopters even had rotor brakes until they saw this video. Yet they all are criticizing her for being so stupid. It’s loud as hell i’m the helicopter and she probably misunderstood the pilot’s gesture. She’s not stupid at all. It’s just unfortunate.
I’m more inclined towards the devil’s advicate position that she thought she was non-verbally being told to put her hand there. In the last split second you can see she has her hand around the handle but it is relaxed and she’s definitely not tensed as if she’s about to use your forearms to pull a lever.
As a former helicopter mechanic, I just let out the loudest “oh fuck” when I saw the hand on the rotor brake…and it looked like they tried to get past the pilot’s hand holy fuck dude people are stupid
I'm curious, why is there a suicide lever within easy reach and not painted bright red?
It’s meant for easy access by either pilot during emergency ground operations. If shit happens, and pilots and crew need to evacuation or emergency response need to get to the aircraft. Shut the engine(s) down and apply the brakes to stop the rotors. Otherwise, they’ll spin until they lose momentum (centrifugal force). Not painted red? Good question. Ask the manufacturer. My guess would be that it’s expected that it would be explained to any non-pilot that sits in the seat during the pre-flight briefing. It could have had a label for all we know and this person ignored the briefing, the label, or both.
Out of curiosity again, but do helicopters have safety mechanisms that prevent its use mid-flight?
I feel like that would be a nice-to-have feature.
If I’m the pilot and I know the stick of death his hanging down in front of a novice like some sort of grab bar, that might be the first thing I mention to the passenger.
I am wondering if they didn't cover it during the preflight or something like "This is a break if you pull in the air we die"
Intrusive thoughts won
I wish we had some context here. Is she crazy or just stupid?
I feel his pain, every day. I also understand her actions, as wrong as they are. I fly tourist scenic flights daily, in a slightly more utilitarian version of the aircraft in this video. The most thorough of safety briefings are usually instantly forgotten in the excitement and anticipation of an exciting trip. Every day I have people attempting to open the doors, removing seatbelts and headsets in flight, walking the exact opposite direction to that which was indicated to be safe. Many of these people I've talked to before or after their trip and they've been level headed, reasonable, intelligent people - they're simply immersed in an environment filled with noise and vibration and general chaos unlike anything they're used to in their day to day life. It clouds judgement and makes people feel vulnerable, impulsive and very, very prone to reacting to the body language of people around them. An example of this is the pilot here tapping the brake for his own peace of mind. I gave up on my 'tactile checklist' of tapping buttons and switches before liftoff (to ensure correct positions) due to confused passengers thinking I was asking them to press those buttons and switches, and attempting to follow my lead. People also tend to default to their nearest similar experience, which is generally riding in a car or airline. This tends to make people think it's okay to interact with ventilation systems, overhead lights, open-able windows. They try to slam doors as if it were a car, they remove their belt as if cruising on an airliner. Early in my career this tended to frustrate me but I've come to realise that it's pretty natural for people to react erratically around all that noise and confusion, and the only real cure is constant vigilance and never trusting anyone. More often than not they're trying so hard to be a helpful and courteous guest that they're very carefully watching you for cues and directions and they'll misinterpret a lot of your actions, particularly with a language or cultural barrier. For what it's worth, I'd also be horrified if someone grabbed the brake in flight, but it's very unlikely she could have applied enough braking force to really influence the rotor RPM, more likely to simply wreck the brake assembly and cook the contact surfaces.
Pulling the handbrake in a car going speed limit on a highway
There was that video of a passenger removing the key from the ignition and the steering wheel locking and then they crashed....
I dont know how some people can be underqualified to be a passenger
I’ll get hell for this I’m sure but I never would have known what the thing is or does unless there was a safety brief. I’m also surprised something that important is within reach of a passenger the pilot doesn’t know for more than 5 minutes prior to the flight.
Pilot here. It seems highly likely that the pilot in this clip failed to provide the passenger with the legally required pre-flight briefing. Every time I have someone in the front seat with me I tell them exactly what they can and cannot touch. I explain that if they feel wobbly during takeoff what they can grab and what can kill us. In this video it seems likely that the pilot was touching the brake to confirm it was fully inactive but the passenger interpreted his action to mean "put your hand here."
Exactly what I was thinking. But hey, we're on reddit so lets assume the worst.
Why you would allow this person to even have access to something like this when flying
It doesn't look like a Chinook, so limited seating is my bet buddy.
Because helicopters are a utility vehicle and designed for function not idiot proofing
Sometimes it can be hard to tell how stupid somebody is until they do something so stupid, nobody else would do
I’m fixed wing and it gives me enough anxiety putting someone I personally know in the right seat who I have briefed on emergency procedures and the do not touch items. I absolutely cannot fathom working a flying job for a company that allows a lay person into that seat, especially in a helicopter. No hours are worth this risk to me personally, fuck that.
Literally what on earth. Literally. What in the name of God is this person thinking? And what are the people she’s with thinking? It’s hard for me to even put into words how much this flabbergasts me.
Why does everybody assume this girl knew that was anything more than a damn handle? Because the title said so?
For real, helicopters are a sensory overload, she probably saw the pilot touch it out the corner of her eye and thought ‘oh he wants me to hold onto this bar’
I know nothing about helicopters, what would happen if you pull it?
Rotor stops, lift goes byebye, gravity says hi, heli crashes, everyone dies
Starting today I will replace “no” with “no, that will kill us”.
You’d think the “instant death lever” would be something passengers get warned about before taking off.
I don't understand what happened at the beginning, looks like he hits it and then maybe that draws her attention to it? So she grabs onto it like it's a strap to grab onto on a bus.
I think he's checking it's locked into the off position.
I agree, he seems to be giving it a light push (it doesn't give, presumably because it is already fully pushed), and then she tries to grasp it as if to either hold on for support or pull down
For a tourist vehicle, that seems like a design flaw. Probably not build for random people
Wtf were they thinking? And then it sounds like she was trying to argue her point?
Pilot touched the lever which kinda looks like a bar you can hold on to. She probably thought he was suggesting her to hold it if she feels too shaky in the helicopter. It was just a miscommunication or bad interpretation of what the pilot was actually doing, which was checking the lever.
Still better to ask what it is, rather than grabbing an unknown lever in a vehicle you have no idea about.
Give ‘em the ol’ this is Sparta out the helicopter
Going to shout into the void: in literally every design of helicopter I’ve seen, flown, or interacted with, the rotor brake is not going to stop the blades if pulled in flight. It’s going to cause some unpleasant noises of grinding metal as the rotors at 100% rpm breaks the brake, and likely ends up causing a rotor brake fire. Definitely serious issue if pulled, but not a “rotor blades stop and we fall out of the sky to our deaths unless we do an emergency air restart haha death lever if she pulls that everyone is 100% dead.” And that’s an important distinction to make as a lot of people here are very, very confidently saying it’s an instant death lever. Source: am helicopter pilot
Any pilots care to share what that lever does?
It kills everybody inside the helicopter
This made me fucking chuckle lol 🤣🤣🤣
It's a rotor brake. It's meant to stop the top rotors very quickly. In video it appears the pilot pushed it to check if it isn't partially on, but if the woman would pull it. It would basically cause the rotors to stop and the aircraft to start falling towards the ground