S76Heavy: If aircraft types are automatically grounded after accidents there would have been no Sikorsky aircraft flying in the UK last July (an SAR S-61 only just made it after an airborne fire the day before the S-76 accident while searching Poole harbour - I shudder to think what would have happened if it had been a passenger filled S-61 cruising a 1000ft higher over the sea).
Furthermore two days after a Canadian Bell 412 went due to what turned out to be a tail rotor failure (I believe the decendents of Lu's little old lady in tennis shoes may have been involved in that one).
The oil comany 'grounding' was really a rescheduling of movements and a rush charter of AS332s.
Shawn makes a good point about NDT. In that case a manufacturing defect and the lightning damage were both missed.
Remember in all the fuss about the super safe S-92 being designed to the damage tolerant philosophy? Sounds an improvement eh?
Problem is that such components are only tolerant to small amounts of damage (which by definition the manufacturer are happy to let you fly round with) - the trick is to find the damage before it become critical. In many cases that means NDT. After this accident that doesn't sound like leap forward.
Remember how we were told the S-76 didn't need BIMs because the titanium spars were such an improvement.....
Last edited by zalt; 22nd April 2003 at 01:14.