Of Bent Iron and Bitter Irony

The driver of a semi-truck hauling a reportedly-new $30-million Sikorsky S-92 helicopter failed to adequately contemplate his load’s vertical dimension relative the height of an Interstate 12 overpass in the vicinity of Denham Springs, Louisiana.  

The resultant impact saw the helicopter severely damaged and the trucker, 56-year-old Miguel Rodriguez, regretting Louisiana’s civil engineers’ decision to set the overpass’s height at 15-feet, and Sikorsky’s engineers’ compulsion to set the S-92’s main-rotor-mast assembly’s height at 15.5-feet.

Mr. Rodriguez, who works for International Machine, a Texas-based trucking company, was ticketed for careless operation.

Photographs captured at the accident scene showed the helicopter, tightly-clad in pristine-white industrial shrink-film, wedged hideously between the overpass and the semi-trailer. The aircraft’s tail-boom and vertical-stabilizer protruded forlornly over the highway—after the fashion of a colossal hitchhiker’s outstretched arm and extended thumb.

The incident occurred at approximately 08:30 CDT on the morning of Friday, 22 September 2023 at the juncture of South Range Avenue and Interstate 12. Crews removed the helicopter from its ignominious predicament and the thoroughfare was reopened shortly after 10:30 CDT. Personnel of Louisiana’s Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD) inspected the overpass and reported, subsequently, that the structure had sustained no perceptible damage.

The Denham Springs Police, in an instance of sublime candor, set forth in a statement: “The load was too tall, and the helicopter engine struck the overpass.” The department added the aircraft was being transported from Georgia to Lafayette, Louisiana.

No injuries were reported.

The Sikorsky S-92 is a twin-engine medium-lift helicopter built by the storied Stratford, Connecticut-based rotorcraft-maker for the civil and military helicopter markets. The S-92 was developed from Sikorsky’s S-70 model, with which it shares flight-control and rotor systems.

FMI: www.sikorsky.com