It turns out there's a reason that penguins can't fly — not even if you put one in a helicopter. An unsecured penguin reportedly caused a helicopter to crash in South Africa.
I'm sure it's a crazy tale for all of its penguin buddies back in Antarctica. Fortunately, no one was actually hurt during the resulting crash, and even the penguin itself managed to escape without a feather out of place. According to the BBC, the unsecured penguin was on board a helicopter with just a cardboard box to contain it.
Unsecured Penguin Blamed
The bird was on a passenger's lap. However, the penguin and cardboard box slipped and hit the pilot's controls. As you can imagine, this caused the helicopter to spiral out of control and crash. "The cardboard box slid off to the right and onto the pilot's cyclic pitch control lever."
The helicopter crash happened right after take-off on Bird Island in South Africa's Eastern Cape. Fortunately, the aircraft was only 50 feet in the air, meaning it didn't have far to go to the ground. The helicopter rolled, causing a rotor blade to hit the ground. Despite the dramatic crash, no one was injured during the crash.
The report said, "None of the occupants was injured; the penguin was also unharmed." It further stated that the penguin had been the cause of the crash. A bird specialist had basically asked for a lift to Port Elizabeth. The helicopter landed to pick up the bird, but things didn't go according to plan.
What should have been a routine trip ended up becoming a crash because proper precaution wasn't followed. The pilot did a "risk assessment" but did not report a penguin onboard. The bird "was not in accordance with the Civil Aviation Regulations (CAR) 2011." Sounds like someone is going to get in trouble.
Officials recommend that all protocols be followed when conducting a flight. This appears to not have been the case in this instance. So really, we can't blame the bird here.
"The absence of a proper, secured crate meant that the penguin's containment was not suitable for the flight conditions," the report read, according to the outlet.
