Spectacular' Helicopter Landing Shows It Balancing on...a Highway Guardrail

The beauty of helicopters for use in emergency situations or military operations is their ability to land and take off virtually anywhere thanks to vertical lift. But just where a helicopter in Norway had to land is probably the last place you would ever think it could do so -- right atop a highway guardrail.

(Image: YouTube screenshot)

The description of the video taken by John Øystein and posted on the social news site Reddit said the helicopter was dropping of a doctor at the scene of a crash.

A news article detailing the ordeal (translated via Google Translate) reports the skillful landing being executed by pilot Lars Amdal, who said that although it "might look spectacular ... it was neither dark nor snow[ing]," which are apparently worse conditions for landing.

"I had to balance a little, but it was not a very hard landing," Amdal said.

If that's hard to believe, the original poster of the video on Reddit wrote these types of landings are relatively common in Norway.

"Similar landings will be executed on rock formations or on cabin roofs during mountain rescues," nu5thetoad wrote.

Check out the footage (note: the audio is pretty loud so you might want to turn down your volume):

(H/T: Gizmodo, Motherboard)