Civilian helicopter pilots have been the unsung heroes in helping to find survivors and deliver supplies after Hurricane Helene. In fact, for a while, they were ordered to get out of the airspace, even though the government wasn't providing airlifted support yet. That controversy has been resolved, but a new one has taken its place. 

I was talking to a helicopter pilot the other day who was regaling stories about piloting helos in combat. Indeed, Don Bentley, who has taken over writing the Vince Flynn spy thriller novels, was an Apache Helicopter pilot in Afghanistan. He was sent to find the survivors of Operation Redwings. Marcus Luttrell, you'll recall, was the "Lone Survivor" of that op. 

Helo pilots do more than just deliver "steel on target" as Bentley puts it in his first "Mitch Rapp" novel, "Capture or Kill." They do more than deliver troops to a landing zone (LZ). These pilots can do all kinds of things; they control crowds and scare away bad guys. They can do this with rotor wash. They use it to do just that in one of the Flynn books, as a matter of fact. See the Adult in the Room Podcast conversation with Bentley below. 

But you don't do that to friendlies. 

So when I saw images from the aftermath of the North Carolina victims of Hurricane Helena, I was shocked. 

An unmarked Blackhawk helo hovered over a site where North Carolina relief workers were gathering life-saving supplies and bathed the site in rotor wash. Supplies went flying. Tents and popups, set up to protect the relief supplies from the elements, flew into the air like some homes went up in the storm. Reportedly, one person had to get medical attention after this display.

On Thursday, we found out that the pilots of the chopper were from North Carolina's Air National Guard.

Their commanding officer said the helo was attempting to land at a landing zone to bring in a generator when the pilot noticed that there were too many people nearby. He pulled up and blew everything around. 

There were big apologies all around. 

The pilot has been grounded, and an investigation is underway. 

Up until now, the rules on landing helicopters in that area have been a bit loose because there was no official LZ. There is now. 

Many locals commenting on these local stories weren't convinced that it was an accident. One wondered where the generator being delivered was and another said that the private pilots who were threatened with arrest never pulled any shenanigans like that.