The latest crash comes amid mounting concern over a sustained rise in serious Army aviation “mishaps”
A US Army Black Hawk went down during a training flight in Colorado on Tuesday, just a day after CNN reported that the service’s Apache attack helicopters are crashing at a historically high rate amid persistent mechanical problems.
The Black Hawk came down on the east side of Thorodin Mountain in Gilpin County, west of Denver and near Golden Gate Canyon State Park. Four people were aboard, but no injuries were reported. Emergency crews also found no fuel leak or fire and said there was no danger to the surrounding community.
Footage and aerial images from the scene showed the helicopter sitting upright among trees with its rotor blades heavily damaged.
A U.S. Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter has crashed in Colorado while carrying four crew members. The status of the crew and the cause of the crash are currently unknown. pic.twitter.com/0EWyqvLMqD
The Black Hawk had flown from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and belongs to the Army’s elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, known as the “Night Stalkers.” The Army described the incident as an “aviation mishap” during routine training operations and said an investigation was underway.
The same unit suffered a deadly crash last September, when an MH-60M Black Hawk went down during nighttime training near Summit Lake in Washington state, killing all four soldiers aboard.
A far more devastating Black Hawk disaster thrust Army aviation into the national spotlight on January 29, 2025, when an Army UH-60L Black Hawk collided with American Airlines Flight 5342 as the passenger jet approached Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Both aircraft plunged into the Potomac River, killing all 64 people aboard the airliner and all three soldiers in the helicopter.
The disaster – the deadliest US aviation accident since 2001 – triggered heightened scrutiny of military helicopter operations and aviation safety. Internal Pentagon figures provided to Congress and reviewed by AP last year showed that the rate of Class A mishaps – the military’s most serious category of aviation accidents – jumped 55% between 2020 and 2024.
More recent Army data suggest the problem has not gone away. On Monday, CNN reported that AH-64 Apache attack helicopters are crashing at a historically high rate, with five Class A flight mishaps recorded so far in fiscal 2026. Based on internal Army safety data and flight-hour figures supplied by the service, the outlet calculated a rate of about 6.24 major crashes per 100,000 flying hours.
