S76 Wheels up Landing at Karratha

[1S1]

Any truth in the rumour that a S76 on a check and training flight out of Karratha, Australia conducted a wheels up landing a few weeks ago? Apparantly there was confusion between the Captain and the Co-pilot over whether the aircraft was committed to the landing. The oil companies would love to hear that. :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

[ 07 September 2001: Message edited by: 1S1 ]

[heloplt]

Last time I checked....all helicopters are committed to landing....as there are none in orbit currently. It would seem...one of the two nimrods should have muttered something along the line of turning final...gear down and three green , prior to smacking God's green earth with the aircraft.

[Nick Lappos]

Heloplt,

Your words are so correct, but I avoided making the input when I read of the incident, mostly because "there are two kinds of pilot, those that have made a gear up landing, and those that will."

Ouch.

PS Will you please silence the gear up horn, it's distracting me...
Nick

[ 08 September 2001: Message edited by: Nick Lappos ]

[Roofus]

At the moment Nick I'm safe! Got skids! :D

Your statement is oh so true although could we change it from 'will' to 'might'? It sounds nicer! :D

[heloplt]

Nick,

Wonder if someone skipped a line in the checklist? In all of the excitement...maybe he read the wrong section....or did the briefing process fail to confirm whether the handling non-landing pilot or the non-handling landing pilot would land the aircraft thus the handling non-landing pilot did not call out the landing checklist or would it have been the non-handling non-landing pilot the one to call out the checklist.....how much you want to bet that each pilot is now arguing that he was both the non-handling...non-landing pilot and not the handling landing pilot thus the accident was actually neither pilots responsibility because neither was the pilot in command although each was a captain. Just to make things a little more complicated here...the training captain would have signed off the tech log as pilot in command although the checked captain was the designated pilot in command . Heck, with a little effort....we could add one more policy or procedure and make this whole thing so very clear and simple.

So glad I never did anything like this...to quote Bristow Training Captain Mike Stabler one time...."Dear Me! Alistair Gordon is going to hate us for this!" (Said in the dark and misty gloom one night during a night base check when we determined neither of us had the throttles in the flare on an autorotative descent to a power recovery near the Teeside airport)

[John Eacott]

I'm with Nick on this one. There are still 76A's around with the early 40kt gear warning (vice the upgraded 60kt), and with a 40kt max run on speed, a couple of distractions in the cockpit and/or a bit of inattention, the error is liable to occur.

Then there's the sin of answering the phone whilst on finals on only one engine, trying to explain why you're going to be late for the charter pick up, trying to speak up because of that annoying 1000hz tone distracting you .....
http://www.helicopterservice.com.au/photos/A109%20wheels%20up.jpg

Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone

[200psi]

So is there any truth to the rumour? :confused:

Ironic when you relate this story to my comments made on the wheels vs skids thread re the degree of excitement when landing wheeled helicopters.

[Steve76]

Well at least its upright John. :(

[John Eacott]

I hasten to add that this was another operator somewhere in N*w S%?th W@les. My 109 is in a gazillion bits during a 2400hrly :(

Re-reading the skids v wheels thread (which I gave up after the second tedious diatribe by a very boring poster..), I notice an reference to what may have been this incident "resetting the warning below 200ft". Those unfamiliar with the A109, the gear warning is set at 200ft, and cannot be adjusted, nor cancelled except by either pulling the CB for the RadAlt, or (surprise) putting the wheels down.

Although in his defence, puttering along on one engine had probably concentrated the driver's mind such that another caption and/or audio warning would have been lost amongst the others, and may not have fully registered. I lost a PT6 once without completely realising, until after reading a host of captions I eventually twigged that one actually said "No 1 Eng". Most embarrassing :o

[212man]

I think you'll find it was a continued (or in fact not) takeoff after TDP, rather than a straight forward landing with gear up. Follows on nicely from the thread on rejects after CDP.

In the 76 there are 3 audio warnings, with the gear up one being last in priority behind the fire and engine out ones. Hence, if a simulated fire with engine faiulure was being carried out, if the audio warnings were not cancelled, the gear warning may never have activated.

[heloplt]

Looking at the pic of the Agusta 109 that was field modified for the vertically challenged of our ranks....reminds me why most baseball caps have adjustment bands in the rear.....saves us money by allowing us to adjust them to a smaller size after one of these exercises in ego management! I keep a jar of humble pills handy just in case I too one day forget myself and get to smile at the birdy!

[IHL]

212MAN; The order of prority is actually,
Engine , Landing Gear, Fire. Like the race car or Santa's helper E.L.F.

[offshoreigor]

I understand that the incident company has a policy of retracting the gear through 65 KIAS on T/O or overshoot. Since this was a continued T/O OEI this would explain the lapse.

It says a lot for using an altitude for the post take off check (i.e. 300') vs a safe single airspeed.

Theres only two types of Pilot, those who have had a wheels up and those who will eventually!

Cheers, OffshoreIgor :eek: