An Agusta 109S Grand just crashed in the Middle of Mexico City, this belonged to the State of Mexico Goverment, recent model, excellent maintenance, that division operates about 6 Agustas, all recently purchased, so far 2 dead.
The aircraft was in cruise flight and had a problem, came down in a heavily populated area.
The deceased was named: Juan Esteban Rodriguez Ruiz, they were in cruise flight and the aircraft had a very sudden problem that caused it to crash, they were up for a 15 minute flight.
Looking at the pristine condition of the visible tailrotor blade (also compared to the M/R bldes) I might be tempted to believe in the mechanical problem statement....to some degree
Given that (a) this aircraft looks to be in a condition for the cause to probably be fairly quickly identified, (b) surviving crew, (c) no obvious high risk factors, and (d) no doubt plenty of concerned 109S operators, I'm surprised we've had no further updates here, 6 days on. Blender - any news?
Damage to the main rotors show damn near Zero rpm,Vertical crushing not good, Bad Maintenance? Bad piloting? No fuel left to burn? Can't stand to see a "New" looking machine the falls out of the sky. It brings up the need to review the people that worked or didn't work with this opperation.
This crash was very disconcerting, this operator operates 3 109S's and several Koalas, all crew had been to Italy at least once a year for simulator training, also all mechanics were factory trained and current, most aircraft are new and in TOP NOTCH condition, Fuel Exahustion is OUT OF THE QUESTION, highly experienced crew, out for a short flight, how can you run out of fuel 3 minutes into the flight when you had about 20 more minutes to go? That aircraft gives you plenty of warning . . . .
People are talking about TR failure, some say something about the ECU, some control system, who knows?
That aircraft had some sort of catastrophic failure that made it come down like that, I hope they find out soon and they let everyone know what happened, unfortunately the manufacturers such as Agusta and Bell take advantage of the fact that in countries such as ours accident investigations are kept very confidential, (stupidly) and this helps cover up many accidents due to mechanical fault.
I always get surprised to see conclusions like this without any knowledge and/or element; only reading few posts and looking at a couple of photos...
Since BlenderPilot is Mexico based and has an intimate knowledge of the operations there, I suspect that he has more idea than you or I as to what may have happened.
He is certainly not making his conclusions on reading posts here, nor seeing a couple of photos
Blender - do you know if they were landing or taking off from one of the rooftop helipads in the city?
On this particular flight, NO and YES, they had just taken off a ground level helipad and going to a rooftop helipad about 30 miles away in Toluca which had an elevation of 8,700 FTAMSL and were about 7 miles away from there departure point, in straight and level flight from it when they crashed, they were about 6 miles away from Mexico City International Airport, they took off uneventfully and reported their takeoff normally, crashed about 3 minutes later without warning.
I hate it when an aircraft just goes down like that, as I said before, this is a VERY professional outfit, every effort was made to keep all their aircraft well maintained, pilots and mechanics well trained, the aircraft was fairly new. I fly a 109E in Mexico City everyday and I just hope we find out what happened, it would be very unfair not to, for all Agusta operators.
Chill out guys with the speculation's, how can you state something like "Bad Maintenance? Bad piloting? No fuel left to burn?" from just two photos cmon. It could just been sabotage given its a government aircraft in a country that had been fighting organized crime for years, just another out of the blue speculation.
Apparently they had an engine overspeed due to a line in the engine control clogging up, the pilot at the controls had 30 hours on type and on a similar helicopter.
Your initial concern over this incident also raised my own concerns - hence my enquiry.
What (please) is the standard procedure in a twin .. shut down the overspeeding engine and land with the assistance of the remaining one?
Is there a 109 mechanic who could elaborate on the engine control components most likely to 'clog up' and what pre-flight precautions (if any) can be taken to alert of systems/component failures capable of inducing an overspeed.
