Greetings
Hello all, just joined up here. Read a lot of posts/threads on here over the years, mostly while trying to find information regarding incidents/accidents in the rotorcraft world like this one out of Romania that is being discussed now.
As you can tell from my user name this incident is of interest to me because I crew/maintain Blackhawks for work(nearly 12 years now). It will be interesting to find out the rest of the story on this one, thankfully there was no loss of life so those involved will be able to recount what happened. The aircraft’s IVHUMS system will have recorded everything as well, so lots of good data will come out.
My first impression watching the videos was what happened to cause the rapid decent? It was very aggressive, like an entry into an autorotation. Which fits into the loss of power/drooping NR scenario that has been mentioned.
I can only assume at this point that no systematic mechanical fault has been identified as no ASAM has been released by the Army for special inspection of components etc.
Second impression is that the crew did well to get it on the ground safely, although there were several points in the videos where it appears they were mere feet(inches?) from destruction.
The new crew coordination training for the Army and the new emergency procedures in the checklists stress “Fly the aircraft first”, gain or maintain safe rotor speed, attitude, altitude, speed and heading rather than immediately actions, though obviously for some emergencies there are still immediate actions that are required.
They are trying to cut down on incidents where crew have shutdown the wrong engine or misinterpreted/responded to the wrong emergency procedure and crashed a flyable aircraft.
The new procedures/checklist have only been out for a little over a year, will be interesting to see how that affected this incident as well. As a side note, the only emergency procedure in the new checklist that has AUTOROTATE as an immediate action step is dual engine failure. Only 6 are LAND AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
Looking forward to the information/discussions on this forum!
Dan