Originally Posted by
KiwiNedNZ
COMPLETE tanget - has absolutely NOTHING in common with this accident. Not sure why its even bought up.
And also not sure why you even throw Scott Menzies operation into your diagrams - not like they had any involvement in the accident !!!!
KiwiNedNZ, not sure why you are so grumpy sounding over several of us other posters? Lookleft has already copped some of your wrath, but in your replies you have missed some of the more subtle observations made by several other posters, not only Lookleft. I will let you look back over past posts and see if you can work out those subtle things.
I did say the Reef Pontoon accident in 1985 was a tangent, but hardly a “COMPLETE tangent”. After all, I can think of only a small number of Australian helicopter accidents that involved fatalities of passengers involved in short joyflight type operations. Of those, this is the only one that I can recall that also involved the ‘collision’ of two helicopters also conducting such operations in Oz, realising in this case it was between a stationary helicopter and one landing, but because the rotor brake on the 222 was inadvertently not locked. I thought about this one because the various posts discussing the concurrent ops between separate pads. There are probably no regulations (happy to be corrected) about how close helipads are allowed to be to one another aside from when they become VERY close together as in the reef pontoon case, part of the reason I listed the link. But perhaps my main motivation for the tangent was simply to let younger helicopter pilots know of this case, which was now over 37 years ago. Many in the industry now were not even born when it happened.
I included Helitours pads in my discussion of separations to highlight it isn't only a case of considering the placement of Sea World pads when considering this accident, but the collective of operations in the area as they all share the same airspace. In an earlier post I also mentioned other past operators in the area, even closer to the Sea World site. So the potential of conflicting traffic on approach and departure isn't anything new since the newer of the Sea World pads were completed. I would be surprised if ATSB only considers the Sea World operation in isolation when investigating the accident. ATSB might like to understand the SOPs of all operators when gathering info. I would be stunned if Helitours isn’t as interested in learning from this accident as Sea World are.
PS: Another tangent: The four newer Sea World pads look to have generous separation. Low risk of rotors tangling on the ground. But more interesting is that the ‘back’ half of those pads has been marked with prominent red hatching. This is presumably a reminder for crew, but more importantly a warning for passengers not to walk towards the back of the helicopter. Good move. I can’t say I have seen this marking on other helipads, though hospital helipads and those on oil rigs now tend to mark the preferred exit route from the pad.