Genghis the Engineer

A bit over a decade ago, Westlands lost a Merlin prototype flying out of Yeovil; from memory it was a failure of a tailrotor linkage due to various design and parts control issues. The whole crew got out using personal parachutes.

I recall a year or two afterwards a very good presentation being given by somebody senior at WHL on the lessons learned in managing that accident - covering issues such as what to do with other airborne aircraft, involving the company PR department, and so-on.

Does anybody have a copy of that presentation, or any written paper associated with it? I'm revising my own organisation's incident response plan and would like to take the lessons learned there into account.

G

safetypee

Genghis, I recall the paper – excellent stuff.
It may have been given at one or more of the SETP conferences, possibly at a European meeting in London. A quick search of SETP web papers found nothing. In addition, it probably pre-dates the Flight Test Safety Committee web records.
As alternatives, I recall tp meetings at Bristol and BD in that period. I am searching my archives – so far without success.

Genghis the Engineer

Many thanks for looking SafetyPee.

I have a vague feeling that it might have been presented at something under the auspices of D.Flying(PE) [or whatever they were called at the time!], does that ring any bells?

G

chevvron

Try contacting Colin Hague who was CTP at the time; he's a very nice bloke.

Panther

You might try and get in touch with Don McClean who was flying the a/c at the time. I don't have his details anymore, but get in touch with the Army Air Corps Association at Middle Wallop and they should be able to help......

Best of luck

Anthony

Genghis the Engineer

Good call - SETP still list a WHL Email address for Don, so I've dropped him a note.

G

lovezzin

Genghis, Don still work at Westlands. He is now Chief Test Pilot! I was sat with him at a table on a pre-flight (albeit ground test) briefing not so long ago. If your attempt at his WHL email doesnt work, substitute the @whl.co.uk for @agustawestland.com ..I guess you know the finer details of his email address so I shall not bother with them here!