R22 bingle in Hawaii

[John Eacott]

Woman pilot Julia Link crash lands helicopter in Hawaii street (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2321770/Woman-pilot-Julia-Link-crash-lands-helicopter-Hawaii-street-engines-fail--amazingly-injured.html)

I know it's the Mail, but it reads as if she made a good job of an engine failure :ok:

A female helicopter pilot has been hailed as a hero after crash landing from 3,000ft into a busy city centre without causing any serious injuries in Hawaii.
Julia Link, 30, was piloting the light aircraft with her passenger Karl Hedburg, 71, on a photography trip when the engine suddenly cut out above the capital Honolulu.
The helicopter plummeted to the street, landing close to a large apartment complex and Hawaii's Pacific University at around 3.30pm, but miraculously no one was seriously injured.
'Everything seemed normal with the aircraft,' Miss Link told KITV. 'All of a sudden it got real quiet. Engine quit.
'First, I thought it was a joke. I was like, "Oh my God! This is for real!" Three-thousand feet is a lot of time to think about things. We practice this all the time.'
Keeping a cool head, Miss Link even managed to radio the Hawaii Fire Department to warn them over her imminent crash as the helicopter was falling from the sky.
After skidding along Fort Street in central Honolulu, the helicopter eventually hit a parked car and ended up perched in the centre of the road.
Mr Hedburg was treated for minor head injuries, but apart from that no one was seriously injured.
'I prayed before we went up and I figured, the Lord will take us down,' said Mr Hedberg. 'We came in, we were skidding. I felt like we were at an amusement park.
'I'm actually kind of disappointed I ruined a brand new aircraft! The landing was nice, I have to say. I'm glad everybody walked away alive,' added Miss Link.
Firefighters said only the pilot's skills avoided a potentially fatal disaster.
'It's a pretty miraculous situation that no one was badly hurt by this,' said Captain Terry Seelig, a spokesman for the Honolulu Fire Department. 'This is a pretty busy area.'
The helicopter was operated by Mauna Loa Helicopters but representatives of the company could not immediately be reached for comment.
Preliminary information indicates the Robinson R22 Beta had an engine failure, said Allen Kenitzer, spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.


http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/05/09/article-2321770-19B09225000005DC-231_634x385.jpg


http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/05/09/article-2321770-19B0987A000005DC-254_634x354.jpg


1CR58Krf4WM

[Pontius]

Nicely done Julia, especially with the paucity of suitable landing sites in that area. Unfortunately, it looks like I'll have to do my lessons in a different machine from now on :)

[cattletruck]

Praise the Lord that it did end well. :ok:

From the comfort of my armchair, I don't know Honolulu, but at 3000' I would imagine there would be a few better landing options than this road. It also must have been quite a hard landing to make the skids splay like that, anyone know the DA at the time, maybe that was the only spot to plant it at the last minute? Do they practice EOLs to the ground in 'merica (Hawaii), the way those rotors are drooping I think they are very lucky they didn't enter the cabin after such a hard landing.

Anyways, glad they walked away from it and the pilot is now better from the experience.

[TwinHueyMan]

Doing an emergency landing in Honolulu/Waikiki isn't about picking the nicest spot, rather the spot with the least pedestrians. There isn't an inch of grass, beach, or parking lot space without people filling it. I always planned on stuffing it on a side street or in the surf if i had to auto over Honolulu when I flew there.

Great job to the pilot.

Mike

[lelebebbel]

It also must have been quite a hard landing to make the skids splay like that [...] the way those rotors are drooping I think they are very lucky they didn't enter the cabin after such a hard landing.

In the video posted above it looks like the skids were torn off in the collision with the parked car actually. The rear crosstube (next to the firefighter in the photo) doesn't look bend and the helicopter is turned 180 degrees from the landing direction. The blades tips possibly hit those palm trees during the run on, pitch links are torn off too.

3,000ft or not, that must have been quite a heart stopper. Congratulations to the pilot.

[alarotantejr]

and that car....!! has been hitten by the chopper sure..and probably also cushioning the impact

[MightyGem]

Good effort. :D

Hmm...bingle. Is that a quaint Aussie expression?

[500N]

"Hmm...bingle. Is that a quaint Aussie expression?"

Yes.

[krypton_john]

I may be reading far, far too much into this, but is that a sly double entendre regarding the spreading of landing gear and Lara Bingle?

[John Eacott]

Lara Bingle?

Who? What does he fly?

[krypton_john]

AS350 by the looks of it:
http://media2.onsugar.com/files/2012/08/34/1/485/4852708/f8e8ff7d1fce77c2_Thumb.xxxlarge_1.jpg

[John Eacott]

Ah, so he's a Kiwi?

:p

[500N]

Krypton

:ok: :O

[Vertical Freedom]

A Great job, well done............:cool: :D hmmmmm & welcome to the Club :eek: :mad: :\

http://i1104.photobucket.com/albums/h338/rotors99/P1050999.jpg

(greeze on; was messed up by the paddy rock wall :yuk: 6 x Earthlings walked away) :ok:



# 'Successful Autorotative Landing Following Engine Failure Club'

[cockney steve]

A female helicopter pilot has been hailed as a hero

bloody higgorant journalists!

Eni fule kno she's a heroine :D:D:ok:

[Vertical Freedom]

Hey cockney steve

Right on the money :cool: ;) :D

[Soave_Pilot]

Oh Geez... they gonna have to sell 2 more R22's to pay for that mazda! :}:}


Congrats do the pilot! Walk away successfully done! :ok:

[topendtorque]

Looks like the little red number is out for a duck on its maiden over, not a good batting average.

[topendtorque]

Looks like ol' mate here (http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/22213329/exclusive-mechanic-says-helicopter-crash-his-fault)stuffed her right up.

[Ascend Charlie]

Well, there's a first - somebody putting their hand up and admitting it was their fault.

The lawyers will be astounded.

[MartinCh]

I guess air restart as per POH from such altitude/height, wouldn't make any difference, if she tried.

[Arm out the window]

What's this "backup switch" to deal with a mixture cable breaking he's talking about?

[lelebebbel]

My guess would be that the author of that article got a bit confused, and he was actually talking about the spring that will keep the mixture full rich when the cable breaks. Maybe it wasn't installed properly or at all.

[nomorehelosforme]

With such a hard landing, fortunately without any fire can anyone confirm, requested/law enforced fuel tank improvements had been fitted to this R22?

[Aucky]

The mixture came off in my hand once, accidentally, when the cable snapped on shutdown - in my case the mixture defaulted back to rich so the engine kept running, I'm curious however to how this might have caused an engine to quit in the air?

[Aesir]

I agree, On the early R´22´s with carburators that spring is a failsafe design mounted at the factory and is not removed or handled in any way in the field?

It would be surprising that it had been changed on the injected engines.

[RINKER]

Aucky, me too. I had the mixture knob with cable pull right out on shutdown in an R 22 also and like yours the engine kept running.

R.

[topendtorque]

Early mandated airport security measures was a padlocked device on the Mixture control at full out. Used to intrigue the heck out of me, less than 2 seconds with a side-cutter, start it and fly away in full rich.

[PBY]

Mechanic plans to buy new copter, car to replace damage in downtown Honolulu crash landing (http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/f99128e892e2460a93465d3e64294450/US--Helicopter-Crash-Landing)

HONOLULU — The mechanic who is taking the blame for last week's helicopter crash landing in downtown Honolulu says he's buying a new copter for the company that leased the aircraft. He's also buying a new car for the college student whose parked Mazda was badly damaged when the helicopter skidded down a street.

Brant Swigart said Tuesday he's making the purchases to make up for not seeing the problem that caused the small helicopter's engine failure. No one was badly hurt when the pilot was forced to crash-land on the street, but Swigart said he feels terrible that it could have been deadly.

Buying a replacement helicopter for Mauna Loa Helicopters shows Swigart's character, said the company's president, Benjamin Fouts.

"He's just trying to take responsibility for what happened and make sure he does the right thing," Fouts said. "He's truly one-of-a-kind."

Soon after last week's crash, Swigart came forward to say the engine failure was his fault because he overlooked incorrect rigging that caused a cable to snap.

Fouts said while a brand-new Robinson R22 Beta can cost $270,000, Swigart will buy something that's similar to the condition of the 1992 copter. Fouts said he doesn't know how much that will cost.

Pilot Julia Link was a bit apprehensive about getting back in the pilot's seat, but she flew a helicopter Monday for the first time since the emergency landing. Fouts said he and Link went on a flight over Punchbowl Crater, which is where she was flying last week with a photographer taking aerial shots.

When the helicopter lost power, her knowledge of the area helped her land on a street that she knew was a one-way and had no overhead wires, Fouts said.

"I just couldn't believe how well she handled it," he said.

Swigart called the Hawaii Pacific University student Monday about replacing his car.

"I figure he's pretty much an innocent victim," he said.

Authorities talk to Julia Link who was piloting the small helicopter that crashed in downtown Honolulu Wednesday, May 8, 2013, The helicopter crashed near the intersection of Fort Street and Beretania Street. The helicopter was on a photography flight when it lost power, forcing a crash landing on Fort Street, which is home to a large apartment complex and Hawaii Pacific University. (AP Photo/Eugene Tanner)
Matthew Lau was taking final exams when the helicopter damaged his 2012 Mazda 6. He said he's not sure if he'll take Swigart up on his offer or go through insurance.

Lau, 28, said his insurance company is determining whether the car is a total loss.

"I respect he took responsibility for this," Lau said. "It's great that Brant came out and said he'd buy me a new one outright."

Lau said he had saved up while serving in the Army National Guard and doing three tours in Iraq to buy the brand new car.

Swigart said he doesn't have the $22,000 in cash to replace that car, but he'll either take out a loan or take care of Lau's new car payments.

"I'm trying to find money all day," he said. "I'll make it happen."

Swigart has been commended for taking responsibility, but he said he's just trying to do what's right.

"If his insurance company is going to sue, I might as well buy him a car," he said. "What's the point in me running and hiding?"

He said he also wants to try and prevent insurance rates from increasing for Fouts and Lau.

He said he doesn't regret coming forward and taking blame: "I just feel that's the way everybody should be."