late in the day prior to the accident the emergency services helicopter in brisbane was tasked for the job. i wouldn't call it a rescue as the boat was in pretty calm seas and not in imminent danger.
they have an operation procedure in the government rescue service that precludes winching over water at night and they stick to it.
when they will attend under adverse or night over water conditions it is always with two flight crew and a crewman and they will drop a liferaft and return at first light or the earliest the can to conduct any winching.
the government helicopetr fleet only has one auto hover capable machine and that is based in cairns, even so they are not all trained to use this device so they don't.
the three point four million dollar 407 took off with one pilot and one crewman from rocky at about midnight to fly approximately 130 nautical over water. they had six or seven jerries of fuel on board with the expectation of finding a supposedly known sandy cay to land on and refuel, all this on a mild but very very black night.
it seems that an attempt to drop a liferaft was made and an abseiling rope was attached so the raft could be pulled toward the yacht and then dropped for the two drug runners to pull it in.
part of the rope was apparently found wrapped around the tail rotor drive shaft. whether this happened before or after the accident (it's hard to call this an accident you could not be blamed for thinking otherwise)is not known.
the machine went in upside down tail over nose and the main rotor head and blades parted company with the machine, they were located but not salvaged quite a distance from the hull.
keeping station over the water on a good day is difficult enough without turning off the lights. you have to shake your head and wonder at the ego or stupidity of someone who thinks they can handle a nvfr machine in those conditions. it wouldn't have mattered if he had six engines and three crewmen he was always going to go in.
one of the problems with private rescue operations is that there is no proper command at the top other than the pilot and only his decision making ability or lack of it to give the go or no go call.
1. private rescue machine crashes into mud flats, severe weather, heavy rain and cloud on the deck, pilot survives, crewman and pregnant passenger dead. sydney.
2. private rescue machine crashes into sea at night in heavy rain at night in victoria.
3. private rescue machine descends into terrain at night in heavy rain at night in queensland.
4. private rescue machine crashes in dense fog attempting to pick up dead body in central nsw coast.
5. private rescue machine crashes out of fuel in fog at night killing all five on board. queensland.
6. private rescue machine explodes on the ground and is destroyed in central qld.
7. private rescue machine crashes on reef at night in pitch black overwater.
8. non private twin rescue machine goes into the water in harbour.
9. non private rescue machine swamped by quite a few freak waves and is destroyed.
10. private twin crashes into bay in atrocious weather, queensland.
that's off the top of my head
what has to happen for someone supposedly in control to sit up and see what is going on.
why should industry have to wear the results of these avoidable mishaps in the form of public distrust and massive insurance premium hikes.
it's bad enough that accidents have to happen at all but to have gung ho obviously brain dead cowboys launching off into the black and unforgiving void has to be beyond comprehension.
there are those that will say "but they are trying to save lives and help people" and "they only have the best interests of the comunity at heart". rubbish, they believe the hero publicity that they receive for just doing a job of flying. "pilot hero hovers helicopter", "pilot hailed a hero for flying helicopter".
when you stand back and look at the cost in life and machinery it is hard to see that it is acceptable to any community. most of these accidents happened when the pilot decided to forget the first rule of rescue, don't become a rescuee yourself.
and just to cover my bum i do think that most ems/rescue pilots are very professional and use proper operational procedures hence the near zero incident rate amongst the larger corporate type operations. it is up to industry to set the standard and maintain it,
casa don't seem to want to do it.
all of the people killed in helicopter rescue accidents could have been carried in an ambulance and been alive today.
