A penguin is being blamed for a helicopter crash in South Africa.
I know that Penguins don’t fly, but in this case a Penguin went a step further and caused a helicopter to crash: pic.twitter.com/15AfPUpchh
— Scott Manley (@DJSnM) April 10, 2025
Penguin blamed for helicopter crash
The crash happened not long after take off from Bird Island near the Eastern Cape back in January.
No one was hurt, including, most importantly, the penguin.
Whilst most of the mainstream media is reporting that the penguin caused the crash, it is clear that it was in fact, human error.
A Robinson R44 helicopter crashed on takeoff from Bird Island, South Africa, when a penguin 🐧 in a cardboard box slid from the passenger’s grip on to the pilot’s cyclic pitch control lever.
The accident occurred on 19 Jan. The occupants, including the penguin, were unharmed.— Aviation Safety Network (ASN) (@AviationSafety) April 9, 2025
The incident report stated:
The pilot conducted a risk assessment of the flight; however, he omitted to include the carriage (transportation) of the penguin on-board. Therefore, the risk assessment procedure was deemed not in line with Part 127.07.34 of the CAR. The passenger seated on the left front seat placed the cardboard box containing the penguin on his lap and secured it with his hands.
It also recorded a ‘ disregard for standard operating procedures’.
The people to blame here were the researcher and the pilot – but as usual, shitty humans will do anything to pass the buck for their own mistakes. And much of the media are lapping it up.
Critically endangered
The penguin in question was an African Penguin which inhabits the coasts of South Africa and Namibia. They grow up to 68cm and weigh around 4kg. It is unclear why the researcher took the penguin on the helicopter. The species is critically endangered. This means the researcher should have taken even more care when handling and transporting the penguin.
There used to be millions of African Penguins – however, today there are less than 32,000 left in the wild. That is a mere 1% of the original population.
Scientists estimate that the bird could completely disappear from the wild in less than 4,000 days without urgent conservation efforts.
Penguins causing a helicopter crash? Nature is fighting back.
The incident happened in January. However – the report has only just surfaced which means social media users are left wondering if this is revenge for Trumps penguin tariffs.
Your chance of death by penguin is low, but not zero. https://t.co/m9WHVm0EIC
— ☕️ rahagar ☕️💎 (@RahagarTx) April 10, 2025
This will continue until the orange one is removed. pic.twitter.com/WobB1KlDdI
— mark stephens (@chinwind1) April 10, 2025
After Trump’s recent tariff stunt on Heard Island’s penguin population, the Marine One chopper pilot might want to fly with one eye open.
Revenge of the penguin tariffs 😎
— DanDubbleD ☆ (@ItzDubbleD) April 10, 2025
Consider this a warning. https://t.co/BkPC7Wfdmo
— Nick Pettigrew (@Nick_Pettigrew) April 10, 2025
Penguins are meant to be flightless birds – but I think the little guy just wanted to prove a point. Don’t let labels define you and all that.
Was he from Madagascar?
— AJ Peck (@usacomp2k3) April 10, 2025
If I was a penguin I could have easily copiloted a helicopter with no incident https://t.co/DQ6AmtRr5t
— Joe 🚁 (@jkheimerl) April 10, 2025
The killer whales are taking down the yachts, and the Penguins are taking down the helicopters. Nature is finally fighting back against our capitalist, climate-wrecking system.
Feature image via The Canary
