Flying Lawyer
5th Oct 2007, 07:28
Story from BBC News
Paint 'key' to helicopter crash
A single coat of paint could have caused a helicopter crash which killed two people, a fatal accident inquiry has heard.
Pilot Phil Ward and gas worker Eddie Lapsley died instantly when the aircraft crashed in Perthshire in December 2005.
An expert investigator has been giving evidence at the inquiry at Perth Sheriff Court.
Allan Robinson told the inquiry that gloss paint could be to blame.
He said a layer of the paint just one four-thousandth of an inch thick could hold the key to the crash.
Mr Robinson, of the Air Accident Investigation Branch, said the paint had been found on the surface of the Bell 206 Jet Ranger where the tailfin was attached, and that was a mistake.
He added that the paint was likely to have flaked off when the tailfin was removed a few weeks before the crash.
Mr Robinson said that flaking paint would affect the torque during reassembly, and could have compromised the helicopter's safety. He said: "The meeting surface should not have had gloss paint on it.
"My personal opinion, and it is difficult to back up from a hard engineering point of view, is that the paint may have contributed.
"To put paint on in the first place is a form of human error. Applying the correct torque in September 2005 might not be good enough given you have got flakes of paint."
'Rattly aircraft'
Mr Robinson told the fifth day of the inquiry that the aircraft, previously described as "rattly", had completed more than 5,000 hours in the air.
The two-seater aircraft was seen to "fall apart" in the sky before nose-diving into a field beside the A94 road near Coupar Angus, Perthshire.
Capt Ward, from Glasgow, and Mr Lapsley, from Gateshead, had been checking on Transco gas pipelines at the time of the accident. The inquiry, before Sheriff Lindsay Foulis, continues.
Paint 'key' to helicopter crash
A single coat of paint could have caused a helicopter crash which killed two people, a fatal accident inquiry has heard.
Pilot Phil Ward and gas worker Eddie Lapsley died instantly when the aircraft crashed in Perthshire in December 2005.
An expert investigator has been giving evidence at the inquiry at Perth Sheriff Court.
Allan Robinson told the inquiry that gloss paint could be to blame.
He said a layer of the paint just one four-thousandth of an inch thick could hold the key to the crash.
Mr Robinson, of the Air Accident Investigation Branch, said the paint had been found on the surface of the Bell 206 Jet Ranger where the tailfin was attached, and that was a mistake.
He added that the paint was likely to have flaked off when the tailfin was removed a few weeks before the crash.
Mr Robinson said that flaking paint would affect the torque during reassembly, and could have compromised the helicopter's safety. He said: "The meeting surface should not have had gloss paint on it.
"My personal opinion, and it is difficult to back up from a hard engineering point of view, is that the paint may have contributed.
"To put paint on in the first place is a form of human error. Applying the correct torque in September 2005 might not be good enough given you have got flakes of paint."
'Rattly aircraft'
Mr Robinson told the fifth day of the inquiry that the aircraft, previously described as "rattly", had completed more than 5,000 hours in the air.
The two-seater aircraft was seen to "fall apart" in the sky before nose-diving into a field beside the A94 road near Coupar Angus, Perthshire.
Capt Ward, from Glasgow, and Mr Lapsley, from Gateshead, had been checking on Transco gas pipelines at the time of the accident. The inquiry, before Sheriff Lindsay Foulis, continues.