I found Airbus’s actions after this tragedy to be reprehensible. Throwing blame and accusations in every direction.
I had been told in no uncertain terms when, on course, I called one a PUMA that the 225LP was not a Puma but a new aircraft…..after the accident Airbus started to refer to the “Safety Record of the PUMA family”.
On another note they kept talking about the wonderful emergency lube system, which when actually activated, indicated a system failure of the system that led to 2 ditchings. Has it ever been used successfully?
Don’t get me going on the fuel system. If you were PNF you spent 25% of your time checking fuel xfer. especially if using the external aux tanks.
I freely admit it was far from my favourite aircraft.
Originally Posted by
Cinderella12
I think one thing that may be forgotten is this;
On Tues/ Weds 26/27th April 2016 I was chatting to the 225 accident captain about technical things at the CAE Sim Centre in Oslo. On the Friday 29th April, we got the shocking news of the accident followed by learning the names of the crew [who we knew]. There was much discussion of what could cause the main rotor to detach and 'fly' to the ground. We all agreed that it would take a while to ascertain what had happened [ 225s were soon grounded by the Norwegian and Brit CAAs]
.
However, on the following Monday morning Airbus released a statement effectively stating that the there was no fault with the 225 and hinting that there may have been a maintenance problem involved in the cause. On that basis they were happy for continued operations with no requirement to consider a temporary grounding [ this had echoes of their responses to the 2 EM lube ditchings years earlier........no one was injured because of luck in those incidents]. I was astonished [but not entirely surprised] as there was no way they could have known at this point what caused the accident.
I printed off the Airbus statement and showed it to some CHC crews at CAE Oslo as I thought Airbus were being very irresponsible and I wanted their opinions. They all agreed with me.
So......one of the underlying reasons for the 225 not being in the North Sea since, was that element of distrust of not just the aircraft, but also the Airbus organisation..