Jetranger crash Gladstone
 

36 hours after the crash, the alert was first raised by luggage washing up on shore.

Top Stories: Washed-up luggage leads rescuers to injured men in crashed helicopter http://ab.co/2mHxLX0

Mickjoebill

Could that mean no flight note filed or spidertracks fitted?

Hope not.

Dick. No ELT is much worse. Or a faulty ELT. No Satphone either. Not the way I fky.

Second hand but from a close source.

1. SAR cancelled moments before the engine flamed out and a botched auto rotation resulted in the crash.

2. Well known chopper pilot who knew exactly where they would be was blocked from boarding rescue choppers and or flying his own to the scene, so when told approximately where to look they missed the wreck. :ugh: Well known local would have found it exactly. Sad state of "regulatory/risk averse" SAR procedures. := AMSA will get a message from me at least.

3. Pilot will not come out looking rosy if what I hear is found to be true, but the rescue should have been swifter for sure. No excuses. Lucky the boats found did what they did.

And yes a spider track or PLB would have been helpful for sure.

Reported that AMSA accessed Ozrunways tracking data to locate crash site.

Working link
http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-0...escued/8367360

Whats a spider track?

Tracking system

http://www.spidertracks.com/

skadi

Yeah true.....that only works when you have mobile coverage which they did down to a lowish level. So not something you can rely on. But helpful when available. :ok:

PLBs | kti

Just bought one of these, Circa $250
The newer plbs are 2/3 size of previous models.
Zero cost to maintain for the 1st ten years, then change the battery.

Aviation hardware that costs 10 cents a day that can save lives:)

Mickjoebill

This accident brings out the real need to be actually carrying the ELT on one's person, on a belt or in a harness or waistcoat.
If that was the case the rescue would have been a lot sooner.
R16.

Bit more press.

Two men rescued after 12-hour hunt for missing helicopter

Jabawocky.


Your close source might not be such a close source after all.

Let me inform you on how Search and Rescues are coordinated which may help shape your future posts..

1. FACT.. Initially QLD police thought they were looking for an upturned vessel.

why is that? based on initial items recovered because id say no one knew of a helicopter being in the area.. just a guess....

however...This would be the information the first Search was based on...

All Rescue Crews (Heli, Boat, Plane ) are given search instructions by QLD police or AMSAR! When further information came to light via the first search it was discovered that a helicopter had departed Brisbane days before. Meanwhile, 1st search completed and Its now heading into the evening..

QLD police and AMSAR would then change Search instructions and areas to be searched based on this information and with Oz runways info now on hand, A new Plan would be devise. Now this is passed onto all Rescue Crews that, again, plan a new Search based on these instructions and information.

Based on Actual conditions at night QLD Police, AMSAR and Rescue Crews then decide how to best search the area and WHEN to conduct the search for best conditions. Moonlight is NVGs best friend.. no moonlight and the only thing you will see is what's in the searchlight itself...that's not helpful to survivors or people needing assistance..

Assets do not just go flying and hope they come across something, they are given search patterns or locations and specific instructions that must be followed..

Weather will impose limits with time on site and rain or low cloud etc will restrict visibility..

Questions that could be asked are the following

Did the pilot submit a flight plan or note telling describing the flight path the Helicopter would be taking and any planned diversions due weather.

Fishing gear means he would be landing at spots to fish. who would know where to find them?... without a note stating the area they were in or what locations they were going to land..

This local pilot you mention. At what point did he present himself to police with what ever info he had? was it only after they discovered a helicopter may be involved? And what? Was he going to head out at night to search? does he have all the training and approvals to conduct an operation of this type? or be part of an AMSAR operation? Was he asked to be involved by AMSAR or QLD police?

Rescue crews are only allowed to take essential personnel on board. If the Local pilot knew the area they were in then that information would have been passed on to crews directly.. instead, OZ runways covered that base considerably..

So of course Joe blogs had the brakes put on him... the last thing AMSAR, QLD police or the Rescue Crews need is some untrained pilot doing his own thing. That increases risk to all involved..

If QLD police had known from the outset they were searching for a helicopter the outcome may have been different..


The way it reads initially...are you slandering the rescue crew? I trust this statement is directed at the Pilot of the Jetranger?

My View.. id say you friend is lucky to be alive..

Feel free to thank the rescue crews that went out at night with crap weather about and searched for him...

In saying the above..

No i am not involved with this operation in anyway, but I've done a numerous AMSAR tasks and just some info i received which I thought you might like to know.

all the best to you.

There's a saying i reads around the bush pilot forums along the lines of: What your wearing is the survival kit, what's stored in the aircraft is the camping kit.

Constant Wear Lifejacket SAVER SYSTEM | www.safetymarineaust.com.au





.

Blade pitch, you could not be more wrong an several fronts. Let me kill off the wrong assumptions on your part, then lets look where facts and such we are in agreement.

By the way, thanks for the lecture on SAR ops.....:ok: But I had that pretty much under control already, but you would not have known that. Anyway let me fill you in on some facts that you are making assumptions about.

1. The pilot and his pax is no friend of mine. Could not tell you his name even.

2. My criticism of the pilot had NOTHING to do with the rescue pilot, it was aimed at the crash pilot. I have no idea how you made that wrong assumption.

3. The noise about no plan etc is not quite correct. THEY HAD A FLIGHT NOTE with a very well known aviation identity in CQ. They cancelled SAR with that person by phone before they went below coverage (at a guess 1000' say) and then the proceeded to land with a flame out at considerable (unknown to me) height from which they messed up the autorotation.

4. The person holding flight note details was thus unaware of a problem until the boats found materials and authorities contacted the wife. Wife then passed them to CQ flight note holder. He knew exactly where to look, but in terms of GPS mark not that precise but by eye very precise. He was refused further participation, even in his own chopper. Police sometimes get a bit over zealous. That cost them a lot of time as at first they flew right past he victims and missed them. The local pilot has probably been involved in many SAR ops over 30 years or so, and has close links to the crew out of Rocky, so he is not exactly out of his depth in that environment, but as usual big government departments have too much arse covering policy to take advantage of quality help. Seen it myself, its a real problem.

Your condescending commentary about when did the local pilot present himself to police I find a bit over the top, but I understand you are shooting from the him and not close enough to the reality. Not sure if it was QPS or AMSAR, but they contacted him for help.

My criticism is of the system that allowed a very experienced local who knew by eye exactly where the intended fishing spot was to be sidelined so easily, just because he did not have a GPS mark to three decimal places and their stupid restrictive policies prevent him from being useful.

Wasted enough time on this reply already, but can I suggest you go back and read my original post again with a fresh set of eyes :ok:

Jabawocky , I think it's called bureaucracy !! Sometimes the rules are seen to be more important than common sense . We have it in spades over here with a classic being 3 policemen watching a man drown in 4 ft of water , even though one of them was an excellent swimmer . They had to wait for a specialist with training to arrive 30 mins later . You and I would have just waded out and saved him !!! So would I fly out over water and dip my skids or wheels into the water to pull someone to safety who was drowning with no other possible help ? Yes . Do I have the necessary qualifications? No . Am I certain I could do it safely ? Yes . Would I be prosecuted ? Yes .
Would I give a **** ? No !

How could they stop him using his own chopper for a search? Was the search area notamed restricted :confused:

While back, at the request of distraught relatives, i used me mustering chopper to have a look for a person lost in flood waters. The police concentrated their search where experience showed them to look and i and another chopper went looking where the relatives thought best. The family initiated search were not part of the police operation though the police gave us a briefing at the local station. This were in Queensland as well.

I'd better add that the relatives did not dis-agree with the police as such they just wanted more eye's looking over a larger area. From what i seen there were a lot of police and emergency people involved.





.

The Rescue Coordination centers, not the rescue pilots, will often stop, or try to stop other civilian/commercial aircraft from getting involved in a search. I have been involved in a few, and in NZ, and Oz would be pretty similar, when you are just doing a visual search, then you can be in a 22 for all it matters. A 44/206/500 etc, would probably be better, so that you can have an observer each side, and the pilot concentrates on flying, but anything is better than nothing.

I have been threatened by the Rescue Coordination Center in New Zealand with all sorts of crap, and basically tell them to f off, when the family of the missing people are willing to pay for extra aircraft to be put in the air!

Bureaucracy at its finest!

One time i was told that we weren't allowed to go in to look for a missing plane, as the rescue helicopter was in there, and the area was too small to have more than one aircraft. I said i would talk to them and we could maintain separation, no way, not allowed, and anyway as soon as the weather clears they are sending another rescue BK and an Airforce NH90 to search. But i asked, isn't the area is too small for another helicopter to fit in!! We went anyway and talked to the rescue pilots and they were happy enough to talk to me, but they did have a laugh after they had gone to refuel and came back with a message that RCC were trying to get me arrested by the local police, without any luck!

Time for folks to wake up to reality with regard to ELTs.

Method by which AusSAR was alerted to emergencies related to aircraft crashes or inflight emergencies -

Third party concern - 24%

Cospas - Sarsat - 7.5% (i.e. how everybody thinks that it works)

Aircraft detection of beacon - 7.9% (Guard frequency monitoring)

ATSB findings here.

Your poor cousins to the east of you have been through all this before.

Get yourself an Iridium tracking device (i.e. Spidertracks or similar) it works as it addresses all the reasons that an ELT doesn't.

Tiered cascade calling and messaging to whoever you want. It will even call AMSA if you want.

Not approved or condoned by the authorities as an "official" system but you can circumvent all that by just putting their contact details in the
call and message cascade.

No I do not work for them but have been using one for about 6 years all over the planet.

We carry an ELT because we have to but always make sure that the Spidertracks is functioning.

We operate in pretty remote areas where flight following and SAR is pretty sketchy. With Spidertracks someone can actually watch me in near real time.

Magic. :ok: