PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Helicopter crash off the coast of Newfoundland - 18 aboard, March 2009
Old 19th Nov 2010, 14:18
  #722 (permalink)  
squib66
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Croydon
Posts: 285
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Yes, it would have been very sensible to have introduced a attention getter / warning set for the revised, lower, pressure threshold for 'Land Immediately'. It makes no sense to have to 'keep an eye' on a small pressure gauge to detemine if you really have a catastrophic failure mode.

The failure to so was probably Sikorsky's Ford Pinto moment, the case were dangerous design features were left uncorrected because the "company is run by salesmen, not engineers" and the priority was sales, not safety.

In one study of the Pinto it is reported that a meeting was called on the subject:

When time came for the meeting, a grand total of two people showed up... "So you see," continued the anonymous Ford engineer ironically, "there are a few of us here at Ford who are concerned about fire safety." He adds: "They are mostly engineers who have to study a lot of accident reports and look at pictures of burned people. But we don't talk about it much. It isn't a popular subject.
One wonders how much Sikorsky and FAA really considered the safety of the S-92A MGB before certification, or were only interested in safety after an accident (and as Broome was not an accident they didn't worry).

For more in the Pinto see here

Last edited by squib66; 19th Nov 2010 at 14:45. Reason: To add photo of a poor business decision - the Pinto fuel tank
squib66 is offline