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Old 19th Mar 2011, 08:00
  #21 (permalink)  
Epiphany
 
Join Date: Mar 2009
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Brassed off.

What you seem to forget is that this is a professional pilots rumour forum. This is a place where pilots should be free to speculate on accidents and by doing so possibly open up the eyes of newer pilots to some of the many hazards associated with helicopter flying.

In this particular case I am told that the accident occurred at last light in low visibility and bad weather in hilly terrain. It was flown by a 'type A' personality who has been filmed flying his helicopter in a questionable fashion and was trying to get home. The pilot was a not rated for flight in IMC and neither was the helicopter. The photographs of the accident show a high speed forward impact with terrain.

Now despite these facts it might be revealed that the helicopter suffered a mechanical failure which resulted in the accident. This will be revealed in the AAIB report some time in the future when everyone except the pilots family will have forgotten about this.

I didn't know the pilot but even if I did it should be no reason not to speculate on the causes. Helicopters do not fly into hillsides on their own. If I knew the pilot and his family I would have called to his home by now with my condolences and any practical help that I could give but it wouldn't prevent me from having an opinion on the causes and if his wife asked for my professional opinion I would tell her - as I hope that my pilot friends would do with my wife. Wives know their husbands better then we think.

One sad prediction I can make is that more pilots this year will die from flying into terrain in low visibility in perfectly serviceable helicopters leaving behind grieving families. Quite possibly someone reading this now. If debating the causes of this particular accident makes just one of them think twice about trying to get squeeze through the hills in IMC to get home then it has served its purpose.
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