PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Helicopter crash off the coast of Newfoundland - 18 aboard, March 2009
Old 26th Feb 2011, 02:21
  #951 (permalink)  
SASless
 
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Downeast
Age: 75
Posts: 18,296
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Outwest...... The extremely remote criteria does not say it will not happen....it also does not say the failure will not happen on two consecutive flights. Study your Laws of Probability a bit and you will see the complete fallacy of that kind of thought? Ever dealt two Ace's in a row...perhaps three...or even four?

Add in the wonderful art of Statistics (I used "art" rather than "science" on purpose) and you can see how easily the numbers can be manipulated to meet that definition of "extremely remote".

We all reasonably assume the rotor blades will stay on the head every time we fly a helicopter. Statistically they should, in reality they do, right up to the point they don't. I suggest "probability" says we have a fifty/fifty split each flight....either they stay on or they do not. Statistics warp that number to the good side....but even then do not guarnatee us a thing in reality.

The oil filter module was a miserably failed design....that is the truth.

Commonsense should have prevailed all down the line from SAC to the line engineers maintaining the aircraft and pointed out the flaws in that desgin. Especially after the previous failures. Sadly....that did not happen in such a manner as to prevent the tragedy from occurring. That does not mean the 92 is unsafe today if appropriate improvements/modifications have been done.

Brian......I can add a long lost of folks starting with Jerry Hardy that we have lost due to the fickleness of Fate! He was a true Gentleman! I recently stood at the site where we lost a full crew when a Chinook decided to come apart. I fully understand what Gann was talking about.
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