Shame it took fatalities to emphasise the dangers of allowing any number high rise buildings directly on a helicopter route in CAS. I always considered it was a matter of when, rather than if, an accident would occur, especially in that location. It was difficult enough when the Post Office Tower was the dominant obstacle, now it's ridiculous.
On the route poor old Barnesy was given, pilots are being given a clearance to fly at 1400 feet QNH. Any lower and you bust R157, which goes up to 1400 feet. Any higher, and you bust your clearance against head-on inbound ILS traffic to London City airport, which come down to 2,000 feet just north of Vauxhall Bridge. While concentrating on maintaining exactly 1400 feet you can think about not busting the 500 foot rule against these high rises while looking for your reporting point and other traffic on H4. Meanwhile pilots need to carry out cockpit checks and slow down whilst descending into Battersea, of course listening to the many "cautions" routinely issued by ATC about cranes, turbulence, river traffic and birds on the FATO alongside the actual landing clearance.
London Heliport itself is surrounded by an increasing number of cranes, some of them overhang the river bank on the approach/climbout area. The river banks are being developed in the immediate vicinity, too (I counted fourteen cranes on a recent visit).
Irrespective of the notification of many of the obstacles (I noted how many "new" ones were suddenly notified in very short order after this accident occurred), there are now so many, it's impossible to be totally aware of all of them, especially when the routing you get isn't necessarily the one you request on the R/T on first contact with ATC.
I think London Heliport has had its day, for this and other reasons and another landing site is desperately overdue.
My solution would be for a new heliport to be built at City Airport (LCY). There is an existing instrument approach there (which would have prevented this accident in the first place) and many of the passengers, who want to go to the city in any case, would be better catered for in that they wouldn't be faced with a 30 minute road journey to get to and from the helicopter.
Obviously, there has always been a helicopter ban at LCY, dating back to the days of "Red Ken". I think a review of this policy is now well overdue.
Last edited by ShyTorque; 9th Sep 2014 at 12:08.