Tail rotor strike in Alaska

[Mars]

Why do these incidents/accidents continue to occur?

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** Report created 10/1/2008 Record 1 **
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IDENTIFICATION
Regis#: 352EV Make/Model: AS35 Description: EUROCOPTER AS 350 B2
Date: 09/28/2008 Time: 1838

Event Type: Accident Highest Injury: None Mid Air: N Missing: N
Damage: Substantial

LOCATION
City: NIKISKI State: AK Country: US

DESCRIPTION

N352EV, A EUROCOPTER AS350 ROTORCRAFT, ON LANDING, TAILROTOR STRUCK THE DECK SAFTEY NET AT SPUR OIL PLATFORM, NIKISKI, AK

INJURY DATA Total Fatal: 0
# Crew: 1 Fat: 0 Ser: 0 Min: 0 Unk:
# Pass: 0 Fat: 0 Ser: 0 Min: 0 Unk:
# Grnd: Fat: 0 Ser: 0 Min: 0 Unk:

WEATHER: METAR PAEN 281753Z 05003KT 10SM SCT045 03/M01 A2987

OTHER DATA
Activity: Business Phase: Landing Operation: OTHER


FAA FSDO: ANCHORAGE, AK (AL03) Entry date: 10/01/2008

[Shell Management]

Evergreen aircraft operating in the inlet SW of Anchorage

I assume the questions is rethorical

One POB - wonder about W&B

[nicknorman]

In the film "Mrs Brown", about Queen Victoria, someone asked why the Queen continued to grieve so excessively for so long after her husband's death to the nation's detriment, the answer was "because no-one has told her not to". It was in a film, so it must be true.

To answer Mars' question, it may be that this pilot was in the habit of coming in fast with the tail down, had done it for years and gotten away with it, nobody told him it was a bad technique. One time his luck ran out.

This is why Flight Data Monitoring is such a good thing. It allows people's bad techniques to be fed back to them (in a nice way of course) before disaster strikes. Once told, most helicopter pilots will take the necessary steps to correct their technique. A few will resent it but even for them, resentment is better than death.

Or maybe he was just having a bad day - never mind, I thought it was time for a plug for FDM ( he said to appease the inevitable outcry)

[zalt]

Agree that FDM is invaluable.

In this case FDM would give solid workload data to show what happens with a very small deck with a lot of obstacles where the prevailing wind is such that tailwind approaches are not unusual.

[FH1100 Pilot]

Why do these accidents keep happening? Because they have not yet replaced the human pilot with a robot with perfect judgment who doesn't make mistakes. I know some of you don't like to hear this, but as long as we fallible humans are flying these machines, we are going to make mistakes. And crash.

In the EMS sector, you all screech that twin-engine, two-pilot, IFR-capable helicopters will give us "safety." ...And then the Maryland State Police in their twin-engine, two-pilot, IFR-capable helicopter crashes and kills nearly everyone onboard. The peanut gallery rises up in high dudgeon and cries in unison, "Why/how do these accidents keep happening?!"

Do you really not know? Are ye that dense?

You can legislate and regulate and do this-and-that, but at the end of the day, it's the one guy moving the little sticks around and he'd better be good, yeah?

In talking with other old-timers, we often pause to wonder how many times we came "this close" to crashing and never knew it. Or even, came "this close" to crashing and knew it! Times when the main or tail rotor might have been just inches from striking something, but we were too busy concentrating on other things to notice but nothing happened. Were/are we really that good? We'd certainly like to think so!

And then to counterpoint that we look at accidents occuring to high-time or highly-experienced guys where we go, "How did that ever happen to HIM?!" Answer: We got lucky; he didn't. His "this close" became a smack, or something.

I flew offshore for a long time. I know that I've come within an RCH of snagging my tail on more than one occasion. And even now in my current job, going in and out of some of the confined-area sites we use requires the utmost concentration and skill. A little backward or sideward drift here and it'd be Bettystown all over again. So far, I haven't hit anything. But I know I'm capable of it!

It's us pilots who are the major problem and cause of most crashes, not equipment failure. As soon as we can produce a pilot with perfect judgment and skill, then we'll see accident rates decline. Until then, we'll all wring our hands in angst over why a two-pilot crew flies a Dauphin into the ground on an ILS, why an S-76 pilot decides to land in a teeny, tiny parking lot that Stevie Wonder could've told him was too small and hits a light pole fixture, or why an Astar driver bangs his tail on a oil platform heliport fence.

Hey, sometimes we make friggin' mistakes.

[500 Fan]

I have to agree with FH1100 Pilot. His post makes a helluva lot of sense. The weakest link in any helicopter flight (provided all the bits stay on the heli) is the guy/gal flying the damn thing! That Swiss dolley landing incident on a previous post could just as easily befall any one of us, unfortunately.

500 Fan.

[donut king]

Check the thread....their a/c are single pilot IFR.

DK

[Foggy Bottom]

We fly two pilot all the time and rotate the crews. I have two guys that I fly with that just drive me crazy. They both tend to be very shallow and a bit fast on most approaches. I have tried many, many times to explain how they are setting themselves up for a problem, but its like talking to the wall. I hear from others that I am the old fart that enjoys nitpicking them to death. This has been going on for a couple of years now...So, what do I do? Do I continue to "harrass" them into getting steeper and slower, or do I just shut my mouth and wince every time we come over the deck as they try to level and bleed off airspeed?

[Gas Producer]

FB,

Who's butt's gonna be in the sling if one of the folks you refer to gets it all wrong one day?

Continue to harrass, if you know you're right. They may never thank you because nothing ends up going wrong, but at least the expression "I told you so" won't be necessary.

GP