Originally Posted by
SASless
When the “weak link” is Rotor Head retention.....that pretty much kills the deal.....and everyone aboard when that minor flaw occurs.
If that’s your idea of a minor flaw I would hate to see one of your major flaws!
Although it has to be said that most of the time, the rotor head didn’t fall off. But from an airworthiness point of view it does seem to be a dead duck. Of course we have had a few “pilot error” fatal accidents and near misses on other types that couldn’t have happened on the 225. So the 225 trades a fundamental flaw in helicopters - the pilots! - with another fundamental flaw - the rotor head falling off. From a pilots’ point of view I can see why they wouldn’t like it since most pilots think that a pilot-error fatal accident could never happen to THEM, only to others. But for the passengers, a dispassionate calculation would probably show that the 225 was safer than many other types.