Originally Posted by
clearedtocross
Thanks for the info on range which confirms my assumptions. Flightplan and custom clearance are compulsory for flights from Switzerland to France (I guess this is true for Monaco as well). Not legal to pick up fuel en route without change in flightplan and stop at a major airport for customs. And flying above 10k feet over the Alps is nice if the weather is fine, but for longer flight requires oxygen (at least EASA thinks so) which is not normally installed in this type of helo.
P.S. Anybody who flies to France from outside the EU (like Switzerland) in something smaller than an big Airbus is regarded as a criminal until proven otherwise. Last time I was met with guys with machine guns and I even had to show the passport of my dog. Luckily the dog behaved and so did myself. Lindberg would probably be arrested on the spot nowadays after crossing the Atlantic.
Well I’m so glad that clearedtocross has solved the question of why it happened. Got to love it when an ‘assumption’ is confirmed.
I note that there are fears of sabotage in the news now, which makes me think of another helicopter which crashed in the UK a number of years ago which never had a cause, except put down to weather. This was in a 109 near Bournemouth, the pilot was flying a Russian oligarchs lawyer. I never for one minute thought that was an accident. Conspiracy theories aside, something stinks.