Sea Knight Down

Do we have a helicopter problem in Iraq? It doesn't look good:

The latest helicopter casualty, an Apache, "exploded in a ball of fire" on Friday, according to witnesses.

"That's unlikely to happen due to small arms fire," [Kiowa Warrior pilot ME] says, "and the odds of hitting an Apache heads on with an unguided RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] are pretty slim."

The fuel cells are crashworthy, and unless they are hit by something like an API (armor piercing incendiary - like a .50 cal or higher) shell, I don't think they are going to explode. Hitting munitions onboard isn't likely to make a fireball either. But the explosion of a SAM hitting it might look like a fireball.