Mexico Hughes 500 wirestrike (?) fatal
 

Some footage of a Police helicopter possibly tangling with powerlines yesterday, with a resulting fatal crash:

Thats quite confronting footage. RIP

wow... always interesting to analyze accident footage, but not this one

Wires will straight up kill you!

Disturbing footage.........Rest in Peace Brothers

Looking at the video, the helo failure was not due to wire strike....the tail rotor failed. From the beginning of the video, the tail rotor has failed...In no time does the helo come anywhere near the wires...

https://youtu.be/X_KH1py1v8I

Maybe, maybe not. Frame rate of the video may have been closer to the T/R speed which may have affected what we see as opposed to what was happening. There is a definite puff of smoke at 25 seconds and the disintegration of the helicopter starts from 30 seconds; probably co-incidental that the video is shooting through the powerlines at that moment.

That is horrible, it does look like a TR gearbox failure, think the puff of smoke is the tr box exploding as the entire hub and blades comes off
RIP guys

Is it just me or does the helicopter lean sideways on the wire in 0:22?

this could have been a wire strike. lots of main transmission lines, or whatever your country calls them, have the power lines which are quite big and relatively easy to see (relatively easy, compared to an earth line, because even those big powerlines can disappear...). They can also have an earth line above the powerlines. Those earth lines are far smaller than powerlines, and harder to see, and are above the powerlines.

If you are inexperienced or distracted, you may see the powerlines and focus on them, but then run into the earth line.

and i think that you will find the tail rotor not turning is matching frame rates, etc.

Playing it back on a 27' screen with the sound medium, at 22secs you can hear a metallic scraping noise and can see the thin earth line lower with the aircraft, as if it has been struck.
Just before the noise, there is a puff of smoke from just in front of the trgb.

The earth line is very hard to see on a smaller screen, but you have the double line at the bottom of this screenshot, two singles above that and then the near invisible earth line caught somewhere on the ac.

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g1...pshow9hleq.png


Looks to me, and is just my opinion based on what I see and I appreciate others view will be different, as if the ac is crossing the wires at an angle in the descent and caught the tail/trgb on the earth wire.


RiP
:(

FWIW, my immediate reaction was that it was a tail rotor strike, and in the ensuing loss of control the helicopter went up above the power lines, then back down through the power lines again destroying the main rotor blades.

I have to agree with SilsoeSid on that one.

A sobering accident indeed. RIP.

What is shocking is to see the tail rotor assy come off, the P2 door open then the blades cut the tailboom off. Any thoughts on why the blades cut boom off unless boom fails and goes up into blades ?

I don't think the tailboom failed, more likely a large cyclic input in an attempt to achieve forward flight and slow the rotation of the fuselage.

It appears to me that the TRGB did hit the top line. There is a rather loud metal on metal noise that occurs at the same time. As the tail rotor fails, the aircraft begins to rotate right and pitch nose down. My speculation is that the pilot may have rolled engine to idle and was attempting to start a descent, but hadn't lowered the collective fully yet. As rotor RPM drooped, they applied after cyclic to bring the nose level but with decreasing RPM the blades flapped down into the tailboom. Things happen fast, stay safe out there.

Definitely hit the earth wire.
I can relate to what is seen on the footage exactly what I did when I had a wire strike in a H-300 C, years ago
Hit wire with T/R, instinctively pull collective to get away from threat, lost T/R, around in circles I went, chop throttle, on ground, smashed it self to pieces.LIVED
The tail boom looks to have hit the main wires and drag up into the rotors
Bloody terrible sight.

This fatal accident occurred yesterday in Indiana. H-500 power line construction.

Pilot dies in helicopter crash in White County

Question after seeing that horrific footage....

If the earth wire hadn't been there, do you think the crew had seen the main wires? They seem to be descending at a rate that would have put them into the main conductors mere seconds after they had contacted the earth wire.

It seems like they didn't know they were on top of the main conductors at all.

Very sad. RIP to the crew.

https://youtu.be/RIZb838Um4M



much more detailed photos of the accident sequence, not a whole lot more that could have been done after the initial tangle with the wire.