An Mi-8 gunship helicopter lands on a highway in Kazakhstan to ask for directions By David Cenciotti A Soviet-era helicopter landed on a highway and blocked a truck convoy to ask for directions to the closest village. An Mi-8 helicopter makes a surprise landing on a highway and blocking a truck convoy somewhere in Kazakhstan. A crew member gets out of the gunship and runs towards the first truck. He shakes the hand of the driver, and then starts pointing his arms animatedly in different directions, before returning to his place aboard the aircraft. Shortly thereafter, the helicopter takes off again, continuing its mission as if nothing had happened. This is not a hilarious story but was shown by the video below that spread through the social media. According to the Kazakhstan Ministry of Defense the helicopter (carrying four rocket pods) was involved in a planned visual orienteering exercise, in which trainee pilots were told to determine their location including by means of human survey. According to the statement, cited by the local media, the exercise was a success. In other words, the crew member was asking for directions to the closest city after getting lost in poor weather. The helicopter has now returned to the airfield where it is based, the statement concludes according to RT. This is not the first time helicopters got lost in bad weather and were forced to land before continuing their mission. On Sept. 10, 2014, six U.S. Army choppers (consisting of Chinook and Black Hawk utility helicopters) landed in the middle of a rapeseed field in Poland in foggy weather. The American pilots received information leaflets on the municipality, in English, and departed again to their destination about 2 hours later, after the weather improved. [video=youtube;WukPAFHYE80]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WukPAFHYE80[/video]
That's the cool thing about the versatility of helos, they can just put her down virtually wherever they want if necessary. I have a buddy who had mechanical issues and had to put one down in a Wal Mart parking lot before lol. As far as the weather is concerned setting one down and waiting for weather to improve isn't very uncommon. Especially in areas that have surprise showers that spring up at random. I've had to do that before, take off for a routine flight then turn around and see a huge wall of showers blocking my path back to the airfield so just sit her down in an open field somewhere and wait for the storm to pass so I could go home. More annoying than anything but not very uncommon. A few helos are equipped for IFR flight but surprisingly many are not, even modern military ones, so if bad weather rolls in then you either have to try to avoid it or land somewhere and wait for it to pass.
