Just asking.
I know the heliport has been there forever but London City Airport is a safer way to operate and surely a better diversion. Wrong side of town and all that I know, but we can't move Heathrow either.
Without wanting to speculate on the specifics of the crash, Redhill to Elstree is crossing some busy airspace and I'd prefer to use H9 as passing overhead LHR at 1,800 foot, even IFR has to be simpler than staying under the inbound traffic in variable VFR conditions.
If wx precludes H9, then maybe we just aren't going there today. It's hard to see how scud running over the city centre is a better bet than turning around and running away, or setting down, before you get shut in.
In a 109, of all aircraft, this should have been a straightforward tasking.
The VFR bit of it escapes me, why, with low cloud and freezing conditions, would you head into that airpsace, but not over the water?
The 109 is certified for spifr but that will not make it immune to icing, so a climb is no guarantee of escape from anything except high buildings. Climbing out from a low level transit, even with LHR to keep you clear of other traffic, may not be great when it exposes you to the ice.
So.... ifr is ruled out by ice and vfr ruled out by low cloud, the great advantage of a rotary is the ability to stop (I know it's not simple as it sounds) or go at walking pace where you can see.
Lots of holes will have lined up for this crash to happen, but some of them may well have been a good bit to the south of Vauxhall Bridge.
The AAIB will be best placed to determine why this happened, but how many of you, really, would set off tomorrow to take that route in that weather?
Let's hope that when we get to read the report, we can all identify the point at which we would have turned back.