S92 "unexpected control responses"
 

Anyone heard what happened here?

North Sea Helicopter Spins on Helideck During Emergency Landing - Oil and Gas News

well if there response is the same for their light helicopter programme then I wouldn't hold your breath. Was given by them beginning of the year 333 days AOG for a life item !!!!! Now that s what I call support !

Interesting story. My initial reaction on the news item title was a tail rotor drive failure - 'spins' -. After reading the article and Mitchaa's reply it looks more like a tail rotor controle failure at a certain power setting.

In times like these it would be interesting to have a rotor variant of avherald.com.

Perhaps related to this AD, issued earlier this month?

http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Gu..._Emergency.pdf

Ground them

Oh dear. Another "death by press" incident ?

NEO

Bring back the S-61 ;)

If nearly all the large helicopters in the NS are Super Puma then nearly all the incidents will involve Super Puma.

If nearly all the large helicopters in the NS are S-92 then nearly all the incidents will involve S-92.

Simples.

Does anyone know if EASA issued an AD aswell? I am having problems getting on to the EASA AD system.

Thanks,

TiP

Don't worry Hughes500
The wait will be worth the 3\400% up lift in price :E

jimf671 You hit the nail on the head . If it was TRPC shaft bearing then massive well done to the crew....things like that can happen to ANY helicopter , it's all our worst nightmare scenario. Good result everyone walked away ! 👍.

TipWeight,

It does not appear that EASA have issued an AD, a simple search (which took a long time to work) returned no recent results for 's92'.

Gary

An AD issued by the regulator responsible for initial type certification will automatically apply. So no EASA specific AD required and compliance by all EASA aircraft to the FAA AD is required.

Here's an extract from the UK CAA website (see also CAP 747).

"Aircraft on the UK Register are required to comply with applicable UK ADs, European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) ADs and those issued by the National Authority of the State of Design."

Your first two sentences use the words "realistically" and "actually" in a vain attempt to justify your argument. Sorry, but you fail.

Two fatal accidents (L2 & EC225) with full independent investigations do not find a root cause. The latest EC225 accident also highlights that HUMS did not provide any indications of an issue, yet resulted in a catastrophic failure with no chance of any survivors.

I'm not going to waste bandwidth drawing the lack of comparison!

I do wish there was a "bullsh1t" coughing emoticon that I could use. :p

Mitch,

This has happened a lot more than twice unless there is another tail rotor bearing that fails and requires a run on landing due locked or loss of thrust. I heard of two back six or so years. One in Norway for sure.

The Sultan

Nope - I don't even work for Sikorsky!

I suggest you move over to another forum. This one is for professional pilots.

I always wondered what would lure Sultan out of hiding.....and once again wonder what works effectively to send him scurrying off with his tail between his legs yet again.

:ugh:

"I suggest you move over to another forum. This one is for professional pilots."

Since when? That not what the forum heading says.

Once you wiped the Foam off your Mouth you should see that there is a very serious failure mode that hasn't been properly fixed. This is a serious issue and shouldn't be taken too lightly. The S-92 has proven to be apparently very difficult/impossible to control with a failed Tailrotor (Cougar accident). They were at low power setting and prepared that something might be bound to fail plus they were over water and still the result was an accident with only one survivor. This is probably due to a pretty big and boxy Fuselage and a rather small tail. Weather vaning effect likely pretty small. So the Tail rotor is extremely critical on this type.
Sikorsky needs to fix this ASAP. We don't need another predictable fatal accident.


Does it warrant immediate grounding? Possibly not. Does it warrant highest urgency on the side of the Manufacturer plus rigorous and tight inspections on the active fleet? Absolutely.

This failure was potentially very serious, especially as it appears to have manifested itself to the crew after committal to landing on a deck. Loss of control (fixed pitch) of the tail rotor is something crews practice regularly in the simulator, but not when landing on helidecks.

Other than the event itself, there's very little information out there. We don't yet know the root cause, whether the AD was complied with, how long the bearing has been installed, whether HUMS picked up anything, etc. Hopefully these answers will be available soon.

henra - the Cougar accident was a loss of tail rotor drive, a very different failure to this one. Immediate entry into autorotation is the only way to recover from loss of tail rotor drive. They were not at a low power setting as the Captain decided to increase speed to normal cruise power despite the co-pilot suggesting it was not a wise thing to do. To draw parallels between this current issue and the Cougar accident is not appropriate.