After Annette and I got married, one of my first jobs at BYU was working for the Traffic Office. Most days were pretty routine, keeping an eye on the parking lots during campus events, writing parking tickets, and trying not to look too bored in my brown traffic officer uniform. But every once in a while, things got interesting.
One of those days was the morning of July 4, 1991, right before BYU’s big Stadium of Fire show. That year, the U.S. Army was bringing in an Apache helicopter for visitors to see up close. The day before, the Traffic Office told our crew to block off a corner of the big lot across the street west of the stadium. We assembled a perimeter of 2x6 boards and set them up on plastic A-frame legs, marking out a rectangle where the helicopter would land. We followed the instructions provided by the Army exactly.
On the Fourth, my main responsibility was to make sure nobody moved the barriers or tried to sneak around them to park in the reserved area.
By the time the helicopter was scheduled to arrive, there were only about fifty cars in the lot. It was still early in the morning and the event had not started yet, so the lot was far from full. The barricaded section was closest to the stadium entrance, so drivers parked in the nearest available spaces, lining their cars up alongside the barricades before heading inside. The cars all belonged to people who had already gone into the stadium to get ready for their shifts. These included concessions workers, event staff, supervisors, and others preparing for the busy day ahead.
Then the show really started. First, a Humvee with soldiers pulled up and the crew got out to direct the landing. Next, the Apache helicopter swooped in and hovered over our carefully marked-off space. I remember feeling genuine awe at the power of that thing as it got lower and lower.
We all assumed the Army had done events like this before and that the spacing they provided for our barricades was more than enough for an Apache helicopter. None of us had really stopped to think about what might happen next.
As the helicopter got close to landing, the wind from its rotors lifted those twelve-foot-long 2x6s and sent them flying. Barriers tumbled across the lot, crashed into cars, and scattered everywhere like toothpicks. It was one of those slow-motion moments when you just stand there, mouth open, thinking, “Well, that did not go as planned.”
The soldiers on the ground started waving their arms and signaling the pilots to pull up. The helicopter climbed quickly, and the flying lumber came to a stop, but not before several cars had been clobbered. One brand new SUV took the worst of it. A 2x6 left a perfect dent along the entire side, from bumper to bumper.
Once things calmed down, the pilots landed the Apache in the opposite corner of the lot, far from any obstacles or vehicles, and then taxied it over to our corner after the rotors stopped turning and it was safe. After it was parked, we set the barriers back up and waited for whatever came next.
When it came time to deal with the drivers whose cars had been dinged, I was happy to let the full-time police officers handle the complaints. Several people were pretty upset, and I cannot blame them.
For the student traffic officers, though, it was just another day on the job and a pretty good story to laugh about later. Sometimes the best laid plans just do not stand a chance against a helicopter’s propeller wash.
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