Supreme Court Library Queensland | Court of Appeal
A passenger in an R22 helicopter that crashed as a result of an untorqued flexplate nut sued RHC on the basis that the Maintenance manual was inadequate to inform LAMES as to the processes necessary to ensure flexplate security. The trial judge in the Qld Supreme Court found against him and bought the RHC line that it was slack LAMES who were to blame.
However yesterday two Appeals Court judges set aside that judgement and ruled in the plaintiffs favor.
"Secondly, the Robinson manual was otherwise found by the learned trial judge to be
inadequate in a number of other important respects concerning the detection of
fretting dust,48 cracks in the flexplate,49 and the failure of the bonding on the
washers meant to be bonded to the flexplate.50 There was no challenge to those
findings. While there can be no dissent from the learned trial judge’s conclusion
that the manual must be read ‘as a whole’51 it is compelling that the exercise, at least
in regard to what the manual said about proper inspection of these critical parts –
the flexplate, and the bolts through it – gives rise to suspicion, not comfort, about
the sufficiency of the instructions in it."
The appeal judges found that the toque stripes : "useless as
indicators of bolt movement or slippage.52"
and
"The evidence and the weight of
evidence pointed to only one possible finding about the condition of the torque
stripe on Bolt 4: that, whatever its actual state, it was not such as to alert any LAME
(or any pilot) to the fact that the bolt was loose, and rotating."
"Once that is appreciated, the evidence that the stripes could deteriorate or slip means
that reliance upon them, for inspection purposes, is insufficient. It was the reliance,
in the manual, upon torque stripes as a method of verifying security that was
inadequate – the stripes were not, in light of the weight of the evidence,
a trustworthy or reliable indicator.
[99] The manual said nothing to the effect, or on the lines that, a deteriorated torque
stripe might indicate looseness. Nor did it counsel checking the torque on a bolt
with a deteriorated stripe. The later changes to the manual manifest an attempt to
remedy this apparent deficiency – albeit one which, in light of the critical nature of
these parts of the machine, seems less than adequate or ideal."
This has been a mammoth case costing many millions of $s and fought tooth and nail all the way by RHC. It it had not been for the tenacity and guts and huge monitary risk made by Graham McDermott (terribly injured in the crash), in fighting this case, the RHC would again be trumpeting their usual "its not our fault" mantra.
Its a great win for LAMES and owners and passengers alike, and will through the hip pocket nerve, force Robinson to fix up what the courts have found is a substandard set of maintenance instructions. It will also open up a can of worms for RHC in that there have been a number of other flexplate failures on R22 and R44 helicopters since McDermotts crash.
In the meantime folks, get out a spanner and make sure those flex bolt nuts are tight. The court and expert evidence stated that that is the only way to know. Forget the fretting dust, the tourque stripes, the visual inspection, THE SPANNER IS THE ONLY WAY!
BP