Originally Posted by
Reely340
After quite some telephoning I dug out the following:
The clutch is 400 h past life limit, because the TBO was reduced from 2400 to 1200 sometime in between. (propbably after the crash of a new helo into the Hudson with one fatality, where the clutch was found to have been the culprit).
I happened to be working for that horrible company back in the mid-1980's. In what turned out to be exceptionally lucky bit of good timing, I quit just before the fatal crash in the Hudson River. The poor schmuck that was flying that Enstrom that day took my place.
Then the federal investigators (not the FAA - they came later) showed up at my door! They had some very specific questions about that operator's maintenance practices. And they had some very interesting information for me.
As I remember, the sprag clutch was manufactured by Dana Industries. Even back then it had a life limit of 1200 hours and was *not* field overhaulable. They were to be returned to Enstrom at the end of their service life.
The DoM at that outfit said that he had taken a clutch from an F-28A apart "just to see how it was built." He put it back together, left it on his workbench and (cough-cough) inadvertently got confused and (cough-cough) "accidentally" installed it on the F-28C that eventually crashed when the clutch let go, killing traffic reporter Jane Dornacker. Nobody believed him. I'll go to my grave hating that DoM. I hope he and the owner of that chicken outfit both get hit by a bus.