Originally Posted by
RVDT
The prognosis here seems to be that it was weather-related apparently.
Fairly simple decisions to be made. Begs the question that if simple decisions cant be made how do you get in the front seat of a 60?
Hope is not a strategy.
It's because helicopter flying is not done in clinical conditions or a laboratory. We're constantly faced with dynamic situations that don't always match up with our best prior planning. Individually, we think (assume?) that we'll always make the correct decisions before and during each flight. But as much as we hate to admit it, we don't always do the right thing every time. The window for arriving helicopters at Heli-Expo was small. All pilots flying to the show knew that. The amount of pressure that was induced upon them or that they induced on themselves obviously varied.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Helicopters are VERY EASY to crash. They get easier to
fly as we accrue more experience and proficiency, and because of that we may think that we have some limited protection against having an accident
(*I* would never do something dumb, oh no!), but the fact remains that helicopters do not
ever become any less-easy to crash. High-time pilots keep proving this over and over. Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that we should simply accept accidents as part of our industry, but we must realize that humans are going to be...you know...human. In other words, if it happened to them, it could certainly happen to me.