Pilot's crash experience becomes training aid

[Heliport]

From the New Zealand Herald
25 Jan 2006

Pilot's crash experience becomes training aid

A rescue helicopter pilot who hit a tree, creating her own emergency, is using the experience to help reduce aircraft accidents.
Sue Dinkelacker was on a rescue flight from Wellington to MastertonHospital in January 2003 when she clipped the tree. She managed to fly to Masterton Airfield so her crew could jump free while she kept the damaged helicopter airborne and then she landed it on a bed of tyres.

Mrs Dinkelacker is passing on the lessons she gained from the experience to the country's professional and recreational pilots in a series of DVDs for the Aircare Trust. The DVDs were recently produced for the trust by the Aviation Industry Association, Civil Aviation Authority and Accident Compensation Corporation. The trust, formed in 2001, is campaigning to reduce aviation accidents.
Mrs Dinkelacker, who immigrated from South Africa with her husband five years ago and now works with Westpac Waikato Air Ambulance, remembers the 2003 flight well. She was working for the Wellington rescue helicopter and was on a flight with a doctor and nurse from Wellington through the Tauherenikau pass in the TararuaRanges to the hospital.

"It's fairly zigzag and I had it programmed into my Global Positioning System. Although I was under the cloud base and had been able to see the ground below me as well as the lights of my destination, I missed one of the turns in the pass and lost my visual reference. My options suddenly reduced: continue, attempt to turn in the narrow pass, or use blind flying instruments and climb into the cloud. It was a long time since I had an instrument rating to use these instruments so these were all poor options."

She chose to climb into cloud, but her radio altimeter alarm went off. "Suddenly the aircraft hit a dead tree. I watched the floor at my feet munch up - right to my shoes, the windshield shattered and one skid and the radio antennas were smashed."

She nursed the damaged machine to Masterton airfield where she hovered for 90 minutes so the doctor and nurse could jump out unhurt and allow emergency services time to cut off the helicopter's damaged skid. She then landed the helicopter on the bed of tyres, severing a tendon in her "flying hand" in the process.

The accident taught Mrs Dinkelacker a lesson she will never forget - pilots need to set personal safety rules they never breach. "It's the decisions you make before you fly that are the most important. Even though my flight was legal if I stayed within the clear visibility area, I had decided to fly despite the cloud base being below the prescribed minimum safe altitude level."

Mrs Dinkelacker said the accident made her more aware of her personality traits. "It's not just male pilots who can become too goal oriented. The task of getting a doctor and nurse to that hospital for a patient transfer became too dominant in my thinking."


Original story (with various comments) here: New Zealand BK117 Accident (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=78282)

[scottishbeefer]

I'm afraid this just reinforces my view that the lowest acceptable standards in the world of commercial helo ops are just too low - no IR? Still went out in that wx? Relying entirely on GPS? Escape options? The beautiful thing about a chopper is that it CAN HOVER. If more people did that and took stock than press-on regardless there might be less accidents.

The hardest decision in SAR is when to say, "NO".

Good that no-one was k.i.a. but folks, please, don't tell me this is a shining example of airmanship. I'm sure the lady in question would agree, no doubt she'll be wiser for the experience.

[Thomas coupling]

Dreadful example of airmanship - not only of 'losing visual references' BEFORE going into cloud, but of then hitting an object and then CONTINUING TO FLY THE BL**DY THING HOME:*
What in the name of faith was she thinking of??????????
Now shes going round the country teaching it??????

I understood she got a commendation or something for nursing it home. Didn't we all talk about this here at the time?

[Bitmonx]

I think in her case she had no other option since her landing gear was all screwed up.
The media called her a hero....:confused: She was lucky not to have killed somebody with her actions taken when going into cloud. Also, time was no factor here as she enough fuel on board, the patient endured 90 min. of circling over the field and the extra time it took to have him/her ferried by plane to another location. Obiously his life was in no immediate danger?
I never did HEMS and I think unless you have done so it is difficult to say how each and everyone of us Pilots would act but common sense is if the patient is not in immediate danger then don't ever risk it?

[Fortyodd2]

Learn from the mistakes of others - you won't have time to make them all yourself! :ouch:

[Ned-Air2Air]

For those that are wondering she is actually now flying for the Waikato EMS program in a 222 based out of Hamilton.

[Heliport]

Didn't we all talk about this here at the time?

Yes - New Zealand BK117 Accident (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=78282)



H.

[TiPwEiGhT]

Is there any pictures or footage of this incident? Be interesting to watch I reckon!

TiP:ouch:

[SASless]

I said it then when we were discussing this accident....and I say it again now....this lady is welcome to sit at my end of the bar and I will buy the beer. She recovered from a very bad situation and is honest enough to talk about it and do so in a manner that is designed to help others learn from her mistakes.

You hairy legged neanderthals that look down your big noses at her just might be the very ones that need to learn from her teachings. Anyone that has worked in this industry past about week one.....has at some point done something on par with her experience of that night....and except for the good graces of the Almighty would have been in just as bad...or worse predicament.

You want to point fingers and say "Not me...never happen to me....uh uh Bubba...I am too good for that".....Hang On! Your turn is coming.


When it does...I hope you have the ability to cope with the situation as well as she did....and the courage to step forward later and use it to help others.

My hat is off to her....she is a professional in my book.

You that are so critical of her need to quit using your belly buttons for peepholes in my opinion.

Thomas Coupling....

Your post was in dreadfully bad taste I suggest. I am sure if you have progressed to Week Two of your flying career, you will have done things you wish you had not done or would have done altogether differently. Maybe you ought to think about that when criticizing others.

Flying nights in bad weather in the mountains has got to be about as risky a kind of flying we do....and as an EMS pilot there is a great deal of pressure to get the job done. The EMS accident rate for such operations is not very good...at least this Lady is trying to do something positive by offering a public examination of how she came to be such a situation as occurred that night.

I personally think you owe her an apology.

[Gas Producer]

I'm with SASless on this one. What happened happened, and nothing can be done to alter the event. It's now history. To be making an effort to help others understand her predicament so that they might avoid the same or similar situation is commendable.

Further to SASLess' point about what might be around the corner . . . It's absolutley true, and you won't know it when it happens. I was unlucky enough to have a 'bite you on the bum' experience - walked out with a couple of scratches, but couldn't believe it happened to me! How could this happen to me? Well it did. There is not a day goes past where I wish it didn't happen or I think about it. I hate thinking about it. I absolutely hate disclosing it.

This lady may have made a mistake or some judgemental errors, but all I see is that she is raising others' awareness to possibilities they may not think of every second and in doing so she is trying to help others. Good on her.

GP

[Red Wine]

Gas Producer and Sassy have obviously been around and experienced the dark side of some of our decisions, what professional aviator has not been there??....

If not, you are either extremely conservative or you are yet to go there!!!

This pilot has my admiration as well.

Thomas Coupling old chap. Can I convene your accident board? You hard ass.

[helmet fire]

Much better that we learn from her mistakes than make them ourselves.

To stand up and talk about it in the hope that we could actually benefit from her mistakes is brave, professional and commendable, and warrants that free beer from me too!

Thomas, despite the harsh words, I think you were prophetic back in 2003 when you said: This has the making of a film, methinks
A film we, or our successors may learn from.

There, but for the grace of God, go I.

[What Red Line?]

I don't believe I would ever be professional enough to get my crew into that situation.

Take a moment to think about the situation had this pilot not have been lucky enough to get away with what appears to be yet another CFIT. Methinks there are some who would not hasten to the defence of this pilot.

By all means learn from her mistakes, but at least recognise that there were a series of mistakes. Whether you think making the mistakes was a display of professional airmanship is up to you. I have my own thoughts.


WRL

[SASless]

Is reading comprehension a requirement for flying licenses nowadays? Seems the dear lady is telling all there were mistakes made....or did I sleep through dinner again?

How many times have we each found ourselves batting a sticky wicket despite our best "professional" decisions about weather, aircraft performance, fuel consumption, traffic delays, and all those hundreds of things that throw a stick in the spokes now and then?

I could provide the script material for a full blown television mini-series myself....without any repeat episodes. Everyone of those knee shakers was self inflicted....and I have never been accused of acting like Superman, John Wayne, and Izzo Yamaguchi all rolled into one.

Maybe no one else here crept over to the side of the deck...caught the upwell and tipped yer nose down to discover the upwell has turned into a down well...and squeaked off down the water wishing you had taken advanced swimming instead of a second piece of cake at lunch. Who here looked at the overhead lights in the carpark at night....saw the beginnings of the fog showing in the light and launched for that five minute scene flight that got stretched to a double entrapment requiring the famous Jaws of Life extrication.....and a one hour delay that let the fog do its thing?

I know I am the only guy that ran short of fuel because of the wind being stronger than expected despite doing two ground speed checks as the flight began...from 225 NM out from the beach.

WRL....one can as professional as Chuck Yeager, Neville Shute, and any British CFS QHI living in a single bodyspace and still get caught short by Ma Nature. It does not take a Professional to get into a pickle...but it takes a Professional to admit it and learn from it. Needless to say....I think it takes a higher level of professionalism to stand up and confess your sins as this dear lady has done....at least someone else that is listening might learn something at no great expense to their nerves or liver.

If you check it....she encountered a problem...recognized it...took corrective action...whereas those that are now statistics for CFIT did not. She may have dropped a clanger but she and her crew survived. That alone speaks well of her.

I would suggest you are dwelling on what went wrong and ignoring the what went right side of the event.

[Semi Rigid]

Tipweight I have some photo's of the event taken during the drama then the next morning.Don't know how to post them here.
A colleauge of mine & good mate who worked within the same organisation as SD reckoned she was coming under increasing pressure from the Trust to accept more tasking's that were coming up at night. There was alot of jobs that were getting turned down. It is a SPVFR operation.Still is.
The motor-cycle victim was not in danger of dying.He had a broken leg. In any case flying to Masterton Hospital from Wellington is a cinch day or night in marginal conditions still maintaining VFR met minima. Outta Wellington Airport then turn left in Palliser Bay over Lake Wairarapa,Featherston,Greytown,Caterton and hey presto; Masterton looms large. Lake Wairarapa is damn near sea level and I think Masterton aerodrome is only 6 hundy amsl.
Apparently an engineering firm in New Plymouth has made a whole BK out of this on (was written off) and one that had struck an overpass on Aucklands southern motorway. I don't think it was flying down the southern motorway at the time but in my little fantasy world it was.......................

[What Red Line?]

SAS, you'd better take me through the scene again and consider the whole event as an exercise, and just to make it really clear, you could perhaps score the various segments of the flight on a 1 out of 10 basis. I need to see the "professional" marks for flying into the stratus vegatatious bit. You can score the post-CFIT as 10 out of 10 and I will be right up there with you. My point was how very different this thread would have been if the ground strike had turned fatal. The fact is, they were incredibly lucky to survive. It is rare to see an event like this i.e. night VFR, inadvertant IMC, ground strike, where all survived. I do not salute those who fly into the ground in IMC as it simply shows they did not know where they were at that time, and got into the situation by a lack of something. No additional points for guessing what was missing from the equation that caused the IMC bit.

For the record though, great end to a potential disaster.

WRL

[NRDK]

Well done to SD on putting her hand up and recounting her experiences. Have met the Lady and briefly talked about the subject. Not only does she admit making some mistakes and judgement errors but she has learnt from it. Thankfully this had a happy ending and if both she and others can learn from it then great.
It’s obvious from the posts who the real pilots are and those that pretend or play at it. The real ones happen to be here having some empathy with this particular Lady. They have experiences that have followed a series of events and found themselves somewhere they really don’t want to be. As it’s been said before, there by the grace of God etc…
Sadly some pilots haven’t made it and that will continue to happen, but experiences like this continue to highlight that we are fallible, despite our propensity to learn. Hopefully improving technology, training and increased emphasis on the decision making and mission management will reduce these sort of incidents to a thing of the past.
(Wishful thinking methinks as there are still too many ignorant “can’t happen to me, what does she think she was doing?”, types out there. Are you one of them??)

[jab]

WRL
SASless is trying to say that we all make mistakes, obviously. Yes, we can be critics and point out all the errors and yes, they made it through pure luck. Good for them. Point made. Now we can move ahead and learn from her experience and know what NOT to do in a similar situation.
I know the only reason I am writing this could be attributed to pure luck, I have also been scared silly knowing how close I was to a messy end and some of those experiences were due to my errors and some were out of my control. I tried to turn one of my experiences into a lesson for other people and it was also taken the wrong way.
Her incident may not teach you anything but there are a lot of pilots out there who still have to learn those lessons and I think she is doing a good thing. I dont like admitting I screwed up and I dont think she does either, its hard. If her openness makes someone think and saves lives in the future, its great for all of us.
Pilots in general are very critical and more lessons could be learned if we just let a fellow driver share their mistakes without making them feel foolish. I know how much I learnt just from listening to more experienced pilots and I would like to see that encouraged.
:ok:

[SASless]

Seems to me it is working....just the mention of what she is doing provoked a discussion and that in itself is a positive thing. It might just jar someone out of that nice comfortable rut they are in and get them to thinking about what they are doing for a change.

Imagine the effect of actually participating in a seminar where she makes her presentation....and the effect that would have.

[scottishbeefer]

Well now, I thought the whole point about this type of forum was that you could air your views about all aspects of a thread, be that the decision making process, CRM, accountability etc.

I'm against a blame culture (unless circumstances dictate otherwise), but to all you righteous posters out there who are somewhat fixated on the lady's commendable decision to tell others her story - you are missing the point.

The way to avoid another one of these accidents is to look at what led to the event - this inevitably entails some up close and personal disection of the flight & relevant factors. No-one should be getting called names but you have to expect a fairly low score out of 10 for the way this mission went. Yes it was an accident, ie not wilful BUT, I'm not going to declare this pilot the flyer of the year unlike most of the folks above..

My initial point still stands - put fairly weak aircrew in circumstances that demand higher performance than they can achieve and inevitably things may go wrong. No doubt this lady was doing her best but she was swamped by the conditions. What could have prevented it? She could/should have declined the job, or turned back way earlier. The company who employed her are definitely at fault for either employing a weak pilot and/or not setting robust criteria by which missions could be flown.

I know that using Hindsight Vision Gog's is easy but it is this examination that allows us all to learn - not slapping ourselves on the back for rallying to a fellow pilot's cause without a proper debrief.

I expect SD can have a mild chuckle about the event in the bar now, she'll be a fair bit wiser as well.

Agree with SAS re the merits of an honest and spirited discussion!

SB

[jab]

Scottishbeefer
I read the thread again and I cant find one post that defends her decisions on that day. I interpret her present actions as someone being forthright enough to admit their errors in public for the greater good of all. Thats not easy.

[scottishbeefer]

No arguments there.

[Thomas coupling]

concur.:ugh:

[helmet fire]

Beefer, I guess I am one of the posters that you have classified as somewhat fixated on the lady's decision to speak, but I am trying to balance the somewhat fixated focus on bashing her for her errors by some of the previous posts. As if she doesn't feel them acutely enough now.

You say: The way to avoid another one of these accidents is to look at what led to the event - this inevitably entails some up close and personal disection of the flight & relevant factors

.....and the best way to ensure we get all the details honestly presented to achieve your stated way of avoiding the next one is to ensure that we create an environment in which the crew involved can openly discuss the factors.

An open environment is not created by continual derision of her errors. She (and other crew members whom do not seem to get a mention even in this day of CRM! - why???) stuffed up. They accept the responsibility.

Now we all accept that,.....can we move on and encourage the detail to come forth so that we can learn how not to for ourselves? Or shall we remain focussed on their stuff ups and our invunerability?

[Semi Rigid]

Tipweight some pic's.

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e1/balus10/BK1172.jpg
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e1/balus10/BK117.jpg

Thanks Heliport 4 tip's.