There has been a fair amount of discussion about wirestrikes, avoidance and results. I stuffed up many years ago and turned a perfectly serviceable Bell 206L into a cabriolet, but survived to share a few insights.
Essentially I had the inevitable list of contributory causes, but having been distracted from my pre planned stop point on a low level film job, I saw the wires at the last moment and hoicked back on the cyclic to clear a string of three wires along a crossing road. Expecting to then collect them with the tail I checked forward just in time to capture the top wire with the toe of one skid, which pulled us significantly nose down.
So far nose down that I was hanging forward in my straps: time slows down. Full aft cyclic wasn’t helping so there was a conscious decision to pull pitch and try to break the wire, which eventually parted with a massive and grateful “twang” followed by a leap skyward. Unfortunately followed by the tail boom being severed by the blades; full aft cyclic can have that effect.
I must have rolled off the throttle instinctively as we didn’t spin, but after reaching the apogee of our upward leap the ground did come up rather quickly on the way back down and full collective wasn’t slowing us down in the autorotation. Adrenaline is a wonderful thing, giving sufficient strength to snap the collective which then became surplus to requirements.
Luck was with us as on impact the MGB, roof and blades all departed to the left leaving us more or less sitting straight on the ground and able to get out of the wreckage, albeit with some injuries.
The lesson(s) learned?
No matter how good the recce, something can always distract the driver especially when single pilot. In this case a school bus.
Think and act, a quick decision can be life or death. Rolling off the throttle saved us from spinning; the engine was undamaged and put back into service!
Wear the right PPE. I failed to have my helmet on for stupid reasons (not uncommon in civvie flying 35 years ago) and was lucky. I had, however, paid for and certified a strong point for the cameraman’s quick release harness which saved his life. Normal ops for those days was to secure the harness to the seat belt anchor points which weren’t (and aren’t) certified for the lateral pull.
Wire cutters would definitely have prevented the wire from trapping the skid/crosstube. The economics of the day didn’t support them for me but for a military aircraft in the low level environment today it is almost criminal not to protect the crew and aircraft with wire strike protection.
Kudos to the crew and Chinook for a safe landing in this incident
