Mi-2 crash - ABC on how not to do a takeoff (incl video)

[Collective Bias]

This happened today. Click on the link and then under "video". Most be one of the more useful videos to have for training purposes - how NOT to do.

http://svt.se/svt/jsp/Crosslink.jsp?d=33831&a=409717

Could not see if he busted the redlight as well:}


Hope the link works



CB

[Fake Sealion]

Just watched the video clip.

Quite bizarre? Can't fathom out why the helo went hover taxying down the tree lined avenue rather than lifting?? Also looked to a bit downwind.....
What actually happened?.....appeared to yaw rapidly to port at the same time as the tail boom appeared to fold in two?
Did the boom "fail" causing a break in the tail rotor shaft and consequent Yaw/crash?

Can any Finnish speakers translate the news story?

Confused

:confused:

[Thud_and_Blunder]

Might help if the Finnish speakers can also speak Swedish - although I gather it's Suomi's second language. ".se" is the Swedish bigraph.

Haven't the faintest idea what's going on; the Real clip is p-poor quality so I couldn't make out anything much after the Hoplite overflew the camera. Would love to know more.

[M609]

Sight seeing flight gone wrong. Mi-2 crash on take off, carrying 6 people, inclund a 100 year old man and a child.

All taken to hospital.

Video of the entire accident

http://svt.se/svt/road/Classic/shared/mediacenter/player.jsp?d=37267&a=409801

It looks to me if the rotor hits a street light pole, and crashes.

Helo on Lithuanian reg.

[on21]

Good job he didn't hit that Volvo.

Why didn't he get some height before translation?

[b.borg]

This is totally crazy - the helicopter obviously does not have the performance to takeoff, yet the pilot persists.

How he could contemplate operating A-A in such a confined area is beyond me.

As he passes over the photographer's head, did you notice the car screeching to halt just below the tail boom ?

(Volvo according to on21 ?)

[BlenderPilot]

IMHO, what could he have done differently to avoid the accident?

Simple, get a few passengers off the flying artifact, or much less fuel.

Thanks for the video, it took me a while to figure out how to play it, I had a girlfriend from Sweden once but we didn't have the need to talk much and I didn't learn much Swedish :)

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

God knows what he ( she? ) was up to - what a waste of a paint job !!

[JAF0]

was there not enough room in the area where he took off to get some speed up first?
I mean is that really the best option, flyng down a street.

did you see one of the blades shooting off to left? was it a public park or something.

[WestWind1950]

They just showed the video on German television... he/she really picked the WRONG place for take-off and/or landing!! doesn't match the JAR-OPS requirements as far as I can tell. I think his company and insurance will be having a "little" talk with him......

Westy

[Fake Sealion]

Now I see exactly what happened !

Watch carefully and as the Mil is going "down the road" it passes a street lamp on its port side. ( next to the dark red car)The main rotors are then seen to neatly slice off the top of the lamp assembly itself......the rest is inevitable, so to speak.

:rolleyes:

[bladewashout]

Looks like he might have clipped a tree on the left.

BW

[on21]

Already a thread running. Look at the street lighting column on the left, just before the crash. Its a clue!!!

http://www.pprune.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=179394

;)

[Collective Bias]

I guess it does not help that the Mi-2 is not typcertified for commercial work in Sweden, and that is was a commercial flight (for hire) without AOC. :yuk:

It seems like it is hard for the authorities to bust the people that flies without operator certificate, and sometimes just on PPL.

Problem is that for the general public a helicopter accident is an accident, they do not see the diffrence and therefore we all take a hit in confidence. :mad:


CB

[Heliport]

CNN report Helicopter crash on 100th birthday

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) -- A Swedish man celebrating his 100th birthday with a helicopter ride survived with minor injuries when the helicopter crashed shortly after taking off Tuesday in central Sweden, police said.

Carl Zetterlund, who turned 100 on Tuesday, was to fly to the Stockholm archipelago with his son, grandson and 7-year-old great grandson from a nursing home in Heby, a small town about 100 kilometers (62 miles) northwest of Stockholm, police spokesman Ulf Palm said.

But something went wrong shortly after the helicopter took off, and its rotor blades clipped a tree and a lamp post before the aircraft went down in a cloud of dust and smoke.

The four family members, along with the pilot and a nursing home worker on board, escaped with cuts and bruises, Palm said.
Palm said Zetterlund's relatives had chartered the helicopter as a birthday gift.

A local TV crew filming the family gathering got dramatic footage of the crash. Their video showed the rotor blades of the Lithuanian-registered MI-2 helicopter hitting a tree and then clipping the top off a lamp post.
"Then there was a bang, then one of the rotor blades broke off. I huddled up and waited for the crash. And it came almost immediately," one of the passengers, Ove Johansson, told Swedish Radio after the accident.

Johansson said that with the help of two other people he managed to get Carl Zetterlund out of the helicopter. It was not immediately clear whether Johansson was one of the family members.

After the 100-year-old was pulled from the wreck, he was flown on another helicopter to Uppsala University Hospital, where he was in stable condition, hospital officials said.

"He got a helicopter ride after all," Palm said.

[DBChopper]

Well you gotta give him 10 out of 10 for sheer grim determination... There was no way that heli was getting the better of him... it was getting off the ground come what... oops!

:E

[Spunk]

Any specific reason why there is no registration on the helicopter??? :mad:

[Stringfellow Dork]

To my (neophyte) eye the whole thing looks ropey!

The lift off was straight into sideways flight without establishing a nice height (dynamic rollover terrirtory?) and the sideways flight itself goes up and down and backwards - all looks a bit "loose" shall we say?

Then air taxiing down a street that seems to be not much wider than the rotor diameter?

But I suppose it's easy to analyse and make insights to a lift and air taxi when you know how it is about to end...

Still curious though...

Very glad all were ok.

[M609]

Just watched the SVT news broadcast. The police have charged the pilot with assault and attempted assault. (Or something along those lines, hard to translate)

*No AOC
*PPL-H
*No rating on the Mi-2
*Particular a/c with no liscence to operate in Sweden in general.

[Martin1234]

The aircraft was registered, not in Sweden though, as experimental and the PPL-H wasn't valid in the country of the aircraft registry. The Swedish aviation authority might report to the police about the aviation related offences as well.

[Darth Nigel]

A local TV crew filming the family gathering got dramatic footage of the crash
Is it possible the pilot was hot-dogging for the TV crew?

Looks at first glance like he was trying to get lined up with the camera crew so he could do a slow overflight -- bit of drama, make the old dears pay extra, impress the neighbours sort-of-thing,

Although it also looks like once he got it off the ground, he departed controlled flight. Me, I'm only an ex-plank pilot, but my first reaction might have been to reduce power and put it back on terra firma, and then figure it out.

I suppose we (or at least those who speak Swedish) will find out later.

[HeliEng]

At first I didn't even notice the lamp post!!

Watching it again, the tail boom seperating doesn't seem to fall in line with hitting the lamp post???

Any thoughts?

[bigsquirrel]

How did he get to the location to pick up the pax in the first place, was it a carpark or similar?

Bigsquirrel

[b.borg]

HeliEng the tail boom seperating doesn't seem to fall in line with hitting the lamp post???

The tail boom separation may have been caused by the main rotor blades hitting the trees (on the right), then hitting the lamp post.
Pure speculation, but one or more of the damaged blades may have hit the tail boom, or more likely, that after hitting the lamp post, the damaged blades cause a major imbalance through the mast to the main gear box, which thrashes itself loose, shearing the tail rotor driveshaft, which then demolishes the tail boom.
Takes less time to happen than it does to write it.

bigsquirrel On the longer TV news excerpt, the helicopter comes in above the trees to the right of the take off sequence, carries out a steep approach and lands. Since he was not carrying any payload, it was probably not too difficult.

[cl12pv2s]

Wow,

I've watched this loads of times, and still can't believe it!!!

Well here's what I think happened. I wonder if the NTSB will give me a job.



Guy picks up and hovers sideways...maybe as there are some obstacles in front of the ramp at TILLSALU airport.

I don't think he intended to fly all the way down the street...just wanted to use the gap in the trees.

Over the grass / dust, he hovers at about 1-2 feet... A little pull on the collective and he sinks back down to 1-2 feet.

So he starts off, aiming for the gap in the trees, hoping to get enough TL to climb out. As he does so, he gains a little translational lift, and climbs up to about 6-7 feet, but that's not enough.

Guy under the tree cowers for cover, just as the car comes screaming round the corner (left) to see a helo in the middle of the road.

Pilot takes out the tree on the right...obviously not as high as he thought. This might be the reason why he pulls the helicopter up. Or maybe he sees the road ahead swing round to the left with a car on it and the van about to come round the corner the other way towards him.

Two guys out for a plesant ride in the park on their bikes and a couple of walkers look up to see a helicopter bearing down on them. They start sprinting!

Anyway, as the pilot pulls the helicopter up, he also encounters a left crosswind from the 8 o'clock position, of about 5-10kts (as evidenced by the smoke at the end of the clip).

This causes him to loose his translational lift and sink back down. Knowing that there are parked cars all along the right hand side of the road, the pilot takes out the lampost.

In the frame after the lamp post goes, the blades can be seen flapping wildly, with about 3 feet between the flap up and the flap down. But the tail boom is still intact at this point as seen in the couple of frames before the right wheel touches the ground.

However, something causes the yaw to the left...this could be damage to the tail rotor by debris. Anyway, a split second later the right wheel touches the ground hard. This causes a blade to flap down and take off the tailboom.

The lack of anti-torque and the forward speed result in an inevitable roll-over.

The pilot unfortunately is not quick enough to effect a shutdown procedure. When the blades are separated from the hub (one impressively off to the left) the engines can be heard overspeading.

The maroon volvo is miraculously untouched as the helicopter comes to rest.

Cameraman drunkedly runs to the scene of the crash. He zooms in to reveal another passer-by, just behind the helicopter, inspecting the damage and then pans down onto the grass where the head of the lamp-post landed safely.

The whimp by the tree also decides it is safe for a closer look.

Two white cars (maybe the ones going the other way before) return for a look.

The cameraman pans up to the sky as if to say, "Oh, lord! Did that really happen?!"

The end.


P.S. In all seriousness, I hope all involved make a speedy recovery. I wouldn't wish this on anyone, not in the least an old-timer on his 100th birthday.

This is in fact quite a serious event...I wonder how many more people have tried stunts like this and got away with it. Too many I suspect.

cl12pv2s

[Gerhardt]

*looks up*

Dang, THAT'S impressive!

[overpitched]

Now I'm scratching my head.

I was told yesterday that the 100 y.o passenger was a retired helicopter pilot and he asked for one last go on the controls ?????????????????

Well this is a rumour network !!!!!!!!

[Perra]

Just thought I should pass on this link:


http://svt.se/svt/road/Classic/shared/mediacenter/index.jsp?d=37267&a=409801


Luckily they all survived but I think the 100 year old birthday man is in a bad chape.

I hope they all have a speedy recover.

[MK10]

why dont people read threads before posting?

[M609]

The 100 year old man has now passed on, according to scandi media. The hospital has not released the cause of death, but says the man suffered a broken arm and broken ribs in the crash.

Hospital can often kill eldery people, sad but true........ :(

If this was directly related to the crash, someone is probably looking at a unpremeditated murder charge.

[NickLappos]

The thread is a sad one, and the speculation about lost translational lift and such are stretching things way too far.

1) He hit a lampost, damaged the main rotor and lost the aircraft.

2) he chose to weave through the trees and lamps, probably because he thought he had tip clearance. It appears that he clips a few branches on the tree on the right about 10 seconds before he makes the fatal error of joisting with a lamp post.

3) the noise from the rotor and engines and the selected hover height tells that he was NEVER in power problems, as there is simply no noise of rotor droop or engine droop.

4) The tail cone collapsed because he lost about 2 to 3 feet of one main blade, maybe two, and the resulting imbalance caused fuselage structural problems (see the famous twin Puma mid-air for a graphic example of this effect).

5) the wind velocity had virtually nothing to do with the accident, as he had enough power and control throughout to do as he wished (the 8 foot wheel height tells it all). He simply wished his path into a place where his helo didn't fit. Remember the Apache tape ("Oh ye of little faith...")

6) The fact that there was no fire after the crash is a miracle, as the white smoke is vaporized fuel, from the engines, looking for an ignition source.

[rotorrookie]

I found MI-2 figures and some performance spec here
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/row/mi-2.htm

The MI-2 Hoplite standard payload is 700kg internal,
800kg external or 6-8 troops so I doubt he had power any problems
also he´s close to go trough ETL speed before he hits the pole,
so must have been his choosen flight path like Nick said.
But why he choose it is something we should not be speculating about here, we should rather wait untill the investigation report has been published.

[WASALOADIE]

Looks to me like the helo first clips the tree on the right of the shot then the lampost on the left. Resultant shock loading of the transmission system may have caused the T/R drive shaft to fail and subsequent failure of the tail. The smoke on landing seems to indicate a wind from the 7.30 - 8 o'clock direction, so slight downwind component, restricted area resulting in lack of transational lift = no rate of climb, there's only one place to go....DOWN!

[hihover]

Kissmysquirrel - If the Puma collision referred to was the one in Kuwait - I am fairly sure there was only one survivor. Yes it was absolutely horrific.

[ShyTorque]

Thought no-one survived the Puma mid-air. I was talking to the pilot of the lead aircraft a couple of weeks before the acident. Great tragedy, that's why crews need a face to face brief and to practice before attempting close formation..

[Corax]

While many of us experienced pilots can watch that video and reach conclusions it behooves us all to just wait for the accident investigation report before casting stones.

Anyone who's flown passengers knows that weird things can happen. I remember doing a blade tracking test flight with a technician sitting up front and as the tracking was good we then proceeded to do the autorotation. Good entry, good Nr and all looks fine until I go to overshoot and I cannot raise the collective! Immediate panic and puzzlement ensued. Luckily we figured it out quickly, the techy had placed the hand held strobe light down on his left between the door and the collective which of course jammed when I tried to raise the collective.

So yes while this flight appears quite unusual and reckless, I'll wait for the report.

My 2 pennies.

[Thud_and_Blunder]

I work with one of the officers who was on the Kuwait Air Force unit at the time of the crash. He tells me the copilot of the No 2 aircraft survived.

It appears his captain, who was handling, had taken his eye off the lead aircraft (to look for his family among the goofers!?) during the approach to the reviewing area down by the Marina. When he looked back up, he flared as he realised how close he'd become and the blades touched. Next thing the survivor remembers is coming up to the surface of the water - looks like the dunker training (which he'd had, but not the captain) did its job.

Please don't construe this as me advocating UET every 2 years. Personally I think once in a lifetime is more than enough; I can remember every last bloody second I've spent underwater in those flaming things and reckon that life's too short to want to repeat the experience. We don't make jet-jocks eject every 2 years, so I certainly don't see why we should practice drowning with a 5-ton budgie strapped to our backs just to keep grinning SAR divers in gainful employment. Sadists :ouch: