Video released for Aust Army BlackHawk crash

[topendtorque]

I see from the press coverage that the BOI has adjourned. There were also some fairly robust scenes in the final curtain calls. It will be interesting to see how it is all called in the wash.

To answer Dan Reno

Do you think it was something other than plain old pilot error?

YES

It looks to me he simply was coming in too fast

I think he realized this at about the 3 seconds to impact mark and at that time made a very good decision to attempt recovery with cyclic forward, to wit the resultant 16.5 pitch down at the 1.5 secs mark. Pilot error would have been the instinctive pull back on the cyclic.

“and tried to "save" the landing by trying to "stick the landing". No?”

I doubt that during the last three seconds that he had any control over his descent. Note that it has increased to 1500 fpm at deck level. That’s a steep acceleration.

There is no way to hide it, what he was doing was a descending quick stop with a 15 knot downwind component, sheer lunacy if you ask any experienced mustering pilot.

Sure lots of us teach pilots downwind landings at the operational level, for dust abatement on mining work for example, but that always has one rule, no descent into your own turbulence, do it slowly and don’t get caught.

What I am delving into is why try a procedure like this where the a/c is being turned from a crosswind to descend into a dead downwind of fifteen knots. The risks are well known for any helicopter.

Had he the opportunity for understanding downwind theory and the different variants of LL VRS and done some major rehearsals up where it’s safe I am sure that the exercise would have been done into wind on final where full control is enjoyed with minimal power required for a variety of manoeuvres, including fast descent.

Through the downwind procedure not only is the A/C set to fall like a brick within many of the VRS scenarios, (as they do) but he would have required a whole heap of extra energy and time to slow the inertia of the A/C with the 15 knots blowing him forward.

How could any of that be beneficial in a situation where you wish to get in quick in the shortest time with the greatest amount of control? Being into wind uses a lot less power, which always equates to less noise.

I think it purely academic to postulate what might have happened had he anticipated his bother a bit earlier. He ran himself out of RRPM in arresting the forward energy of the A/C from the beginning of the quick stop to say minus fifteen (with the tailwind) before the impact, where it is stated that he again had nearly six knots IAS, (that’s 21 knots groundspeed).

The thing is that the massive sinking cue happened so fast (as they do) that I suggest and the numbers confirm it, that within less than a second he, 1 realized, 2 crosschecked, 3 rationalized and 4 reacted – with forward cyclic, (giving him the six knots) all at 3 seconds before impact. Pretty slippery for a bloke first encountering this phenomena. Very good in fact.

As I have said earlier, elsewhere, repeatedly, if you’re gonna stuff it up big time at low level, then be at least above eighty feet – please, perhaps higher for a Blackhawk.

Had he been conditioned to the recovery procedure, he would have been just that much ahead of it, pitched down quicker, missed the ship and not pulled collective, possibly recovering before the water?

THE QUESTION REMAINS, WHY WAS THE APPROACH TERMINATION IN A DEAD DOWNWIND EVEN ON THE BRIEFING BOARD, LET ALONE THE PILOTS FLIGHT PLAN????

If the army big knobs in charge of flying training and SOP’s haven’t worked that out then some elementary training for them might be in order. A Blackhawk and two fine young men wiped out during a safety conscious training mission should be a sobering input to their thinking.

Perhaps also the phraseology, “fifteen knots is well within the a/c capability” will be viewed as pertaining to the engine fire maintenance instead of the egghead idea that it means you can do descending quick stops in a Blackhawk just because it is painted in camouflage.