Legality of hook/ (empty) sling and passengers
This appears to be important.
The Spanish pilots union SEPLA issued a statement shortly after this crash to say the practice being followed here in Andorran airspace of combining freight in a sling with passengers was illegal in Spain.
Now the machine was Spanish registered, it seems, but operating outwith the EU. ¿Which rules count then?
Is there an autonomous Andorran book of rules ? I guess they have, relatively speaking an awful lot of helicopter movements given their terrain. Has anyone any knowledge of their rule book ?
Finally I think I am right in saying that the sling (and the heavy hook??)had been dumped at the previous landing spot before the accident and the machine was flying with a "free-flowing" cable beneath it whose length I have seen quoted by non-expert eye-witnesses at anything between 12m and 20m, though apparently nobody saw the actual final moments of the craft.
Last edited by BigFrank; 21st Jun 2011 at 09:00.
Reason: Avoid repition