As already pointed out on this thread this was a really really unlucky and tragic accident. Most load lifting pilots have some sort of incident during the course of their careers it is an inherently dangerous job. In my opinion, certainly in Europe, its more dangerous than flying for the police, ambulance, SAR, off-shore support and corporate. Don’t get me wrong all of the jobs listed above have their moments but you are largely protected by the regulators and you are flying twins with take-off and landing profiles designed to keep you safe.
Not so in loadlifting. You are generally in a single and a great deal of time , during the course of you career , is spent deep in the Height/velocity diagram over the heads of people receiving ,hooking or positioning the load.
Competition is fierce between lifting companies and clients safety expectations can vary dramatically, sadly in my experience most would rather the job is done as quickly, cheaply as possible with safety generally falling on deaf ears. Ski areas are normally better than most, as they generally have involvement with mountain rescue/air ambulance.
I do not agree with cyclic hotline over the point of responsibility falling on the operator. If airline companies did not have the Flight Time Limitations to work to as regulated by the Authorities what would happen?
If Authorities did not require that pilots have medicals what would happen?
Lifting pilots do not have the same regulations and limits governing them as they aren’t CAT (public transport) and we all know that no lifting would be done if they were. But there are areas where regs would help.
Eg Ground crew do not have to have any qualifications ….you can grab someone off the street and hand them the hook attached to a helicopter and leave them to it ….nothing to stop it! (what happens in the States /Canada…nothing there is no requirement for formal qualifications as far as I know.)
The Authorities , in my experience will take responsibility for the aircraft but not the load. The Health and Safety Executive won’t take responsibility for the load as its attached to an aircraft or should be, and therefore feel it is the Aviation Authorities responsibility. The lifting companies are left in the middle.
Have I flown over gondolas? Yes. The first time I did this job I asked the client to stop the Gondolas whilst I was operating. They did……everytime I approached the overhead they stopped the Gondolas but……….to my amazement there was still people in them, they would stop them only for the second it took me to fly over. It was impossible to stop the whole operation “absolutely unheard of” and like I say these were good clients (maybe it’ll change now but I’d be surprised). I must admit though if I wanted to release a concrete skip timed to hit a gondola I’d still be trying now…..these guys were so unlucky.
Why did the load release? Was there a crack in the attachment point of the concrete skip or was there hidden corrosion? When was the last stress test on the skip? (do European Authorities require stress testing or will a visual check suffice?) They lay it all on the operator…..where’s the regs?
I’ve had 2 uncommanded load releases … (see here
http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...hreadid=147001)…. I have never felt so helpless whilst flying just watching the load and lifting gear drop from the belly hook . I filed the incident report…where was the back up,the interviews with engineers ,hook manufacturers ,previous incident reports (either it never happens or no one reports)……..but if I’d killed somebody in the process…….