Helicopter down in Mexico

[rotorrookie]

I was just reading it on news that helicopter carrying the head of civil protection department ,Ramon Huerta was missing.......
any further info...anyone????:confused:

[Ian Corrigible]

Now confirmed killed. The ship was a 412, with 9 POB.

I/C

[Ned-Air2Air]

Anyone heard from Blender as he flies Bells in Mexico. :confused: :confused:

[AuxHyd]

Government sources say: information leads us to believe it was caused by adverse weather conditions. The article states the aircraft crashed and burned at 11,200 feet. No CVFDR.

http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/306310.html

[rotorrookie]

Ned-Air that is exactly what I was worried about. He flies 412 or 212 I think.:( Let's hope not
my condolence to the families of the victim's

[tall and tasty]

Deepest condolences to the families involved and to those who have the task of retrieval.

I hope for those on here that is it not a ppruner but saying that any loss is a total tragedy

TnT. :(

[John Eacott]

There is a later report, here, (http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/306314.html) which llists the passengers and crew. Crew were:

Capitán Habacuc de León Galicia, Piloto

Capitán Rafael Esquivel Arreguín, Copiloto.

Commiserations to all.

[Heliport]

Incidents like this are always very sad, but it was a great relief to learn that BlenderPilot was not involved.

I've been in contact with him, and he'd just come back from the crash site. It took them 6 hours searching before they found the helicopter, a Federal Police 600 hour Bell 412, because it was in a heavily wooded area. They found it on a mountain-side at 11,200 feet, just a couple hundred feet from the top.

Our sympathies to the families of the pilots and passengers who lost their lives.


Heliport

[PPRuNe Radar]

Sympathies to those involved ... but big sighs of relief that Heliblender was not involved ... phewwwww

[B Sousa]

Whats even more amazing is how many of us have lost Friends.....just a couple hundred feet from the top.

A 412 is not something that goes down easy. It takes a long chain. Im sure Blender will fill us in on the sad news.

[Heliport]

ASSOCIATED PRESS Weather blamed in helicopter crash in Mexico, but inquiry is continuing

MEXICO CITY -
A helicopter crash that killed a Cabinet minister and his deputy appears to have been caused by bad weather, the president's office said yesterday.

Although one official aboard the craft had received death threats from a drug trafficker, authorities said that poor visibility probably was to blame for Wednesday's crash that killed Ramon Martin Huerta, the public-safety secretary, and Tomas Valencia, the federal preventive police commissioner, in addition to five other passengers and two members of the crew. The helicopter went down shortly after taking off from Mexico City, hitting a mountainside about 20 miles outside the capital and scattering debris among pine trees at the 11,200-foot crash site.

"All the elements that we have at hand, all the experts that were consulted, say that there is sufficient evidence to consider that we are dealing with an accident," presidential spokesman Ruben Aguilar said at a news conference. "But we must wait for the results of the investigation."

Civil-aviation authorities at the Communications and Transportation Department were leading the investigation.

As public-safety secretary, Martin Huerta was a key figure in Mexico's fight against drug gangs, and he led a campaign to clamp down on security at high-security prisons.

Also among the dead was Jose Antonio Bernal, an official from the country's National Human Rights Commission. It announced shortly after the helicopter disappeared that Bernal been threatened in the past by Osiel Cardenas, a reputed drug lord.

[BlenderPilot]

I really appreciate everyone's concern about my well being.

All I can say about the accident is that it looks like the typical CFIT accident, the part about it possibly being foul play is press nonsense, if you want to depart Mexico City in ANY direction you have to go up to at least 10,000 to clear the omnidirectional mountains, it get's extremely tricky sometimes, very high mountains, humidity coming from the Gulf and the Pacific makes for permanent difficult flying around here, and if you are going to try it you really have to know what you are doing and have plenty of backup plans in case things don't turn out as planned. There are no airways you can use, and ATC will not help, they will just let you do anything you want as long as you don't get in the way of IFR traffic.

Some months back there was a new 407 lost the same way 2 miles from the 412 crash.

From the time we started searching to the time we found it took more than 6 hours to find it, there were about 10 helicopters trying to find it, all in the same general area, all in the mountains in the same bad WX that had been there since the crash, miracle we didn't bump into each other, we were joking that we should fly in pairs of similar colors in case we bumped into each other the paint scrapes wouldn't show as much.

I could hear the ELT extemely near but couldn't climb the extra 150 feet to get to where the crash took place. Probably another 100 feet and he could have cleared the mountain, he crashed at 11,250 feet AMSL, made "trench" in the woods about 100 feet long cutting down 20 inch pine trees with the blades until he came to a halt against the solid mountain, he had a lot of FOB so the fire pretty much turned everything into ashes.

Last year while being in charge of pilots and operations I had to let this pilot go since we lost a contract, he went back to flying for the police, that has had me thinking a little on what if . . . .

Oh well, that's it for now, when I can download some pictures I post some aerials of the crash site.

Some of you must wonder what Mexico City looks like, visit this link of pictures I have taken of this crazy town

CLICK HERE TO SEE MEXICO CITY (http://homepage.mac.com/helipilot/PhotoAlbum31.html)