Originally Posted by
helimutt
It is now exactly a week since the accident happened. Short of brief statements by the AAIB telling people what they already knew, there has been what can only be described as a deafening silence with regard to the cause. Would we be correct in thinking that, due to zero statements regarding the mechanical causes of this tragic accident, it can be assumed that the aircraft didn’t suffer a mechanical malfunction ? Or is this normal to have no word, even if it was found to be say a mechanical defect ? Obviously I’m not saying it was, but I seem to recall in previous events, that a failure of a particular item on an aircraft would render that type grounded until further investigation could rule it out. By not having any AD or SB issued, is it fair to say that the AW 169 has not suffered a catastrophic mechanical failure,
I’ve just picked on this individual post because it sort of illustrates my point; absolutely no criticism of it or the poster is intended.
Is it a particular helicopter thing to demand groundings the moment something happens?
On Monday a 737 crashed into the sea killing everyone on board, but I’ve yet to see any calls for 737s to be grounded.
In 2014 a 777 vanished without trace in the Indian Ocean, but I saw no calls for the 777s to be grounded, or questions about lack of emergency ADs/ASBs?
Three weeks after the 2016 EC225 crash in Norway, an Egyptian A320 crashed into the Med, with total loss of life. The cause is (
AFAIK) still not known, yet our oil workers were happy to fly to Aberdeen on an Airbus A320 the next day before refusing to fly on an Airbus EC225.
What is it with helicopters that we have to react this way when our FW cousins do not?