Two Black Hawk helicopters crash near Snowbird

Both helicopters received damage to the main rotor blades, tail rotor blades and multiple other components, amounting to about $9.23 million in damage. Photo: Twitter @LifterMike93

SNOWBIRD, Utah — Two UH-60 Black Hawks crashed in the Mineral Basin area near Snowbird on Tuesday morning.

“This morning at approximately 9:25 mountain standard time, we had two Utah National Guard Black Hawks involved in an incident,” Jared Jones, the aviation public affairs officer at the Utah National Guard said during a briefing Tuesday afternoon.

“This was at an approved mountainous LZ [landing zone] up here at Snowbird. Upon short final to landing, it was obviously a lot of snow or some snow last night, and as they landed there… the snow kicked up, and the aircraft probably lost sight of the ground.”

Jones said they know that portions of the rotor blade separated from the helicopter and struck the second helicopter who was also on a short final to land. “Fortunately, the second aircraft landed quickly,” he said.

The accident occurred on U.S. Forest Service land, just outside of Snowbird proper. Jones confirmed that the crew and surrounding skiers are okay.

Here is a video of the Blackhawks crashing while we were riding down Mineral Basin around 9:30 am. Military buddy I was riding with recognized the Hawks coming in to land. So far sounds like everyone was ok from what we’ve heard. Thankfully! Video cred: Tom Carney #snowbird pic.twitter.com/JKTAqndqdE

— Cory Inman (@IM_Inman) February 22, 2022

“We train this as part of a routine mission set. So both summertime and wintertime mountainous training, including dust and snow conditions, including, we call it full white out condition. In combat, there are places you have to land sometimes that are that difficult and so we do train to that standard,” Jones said. The incident is under investigation.

The Unified Police Department responded to the Mineral Basin area around 10 am.

Snowbird Ski Resort closed Mineral Basin to skiing and closed the Aerial Tram and Little Cloud lifts shortly afterward.

A little over a year ago, three pilots with the Idaho National Guard were killed in a Black Hawk helicopter crash near Boise.

Following a Black Hawk crash in New York State in January 2021, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) called for the Department of Defense to investigate the UH-60 Black Hawk.