LongRanger down off Muizenberg

[Deanw]

A LongRanger (ZS-HSX?) has just put down off Muizenberg, carrying 6 pax +1.

At least four pax are OK, but possibly all seven OK.

Holding thumbs all OK.

[farmpilot]

Any news??? iafrica are saying they are all OK...... Fingers crossed

[CoJam]

All news and pics re this accident on "another forum"....:E

[farmpilot]

Roger ball.....:ok:

[radioexcel]

??Give us a link pse. tks

[GULF69]

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[GULF69]

i've put some photo's on. Check the thread "Photo's of Sport Helicopters's crashed heli "

69

[Fluffy flyer]

The pilot of this chopper is a very good friend of mine, we have been in aviation together for many years.

I spoke with his wife this morning and he is still in hospital undergoing tests to see if he is ok. The Doctors at this stage suspect he has squashed a few vertebrae in his spine. This will mean he will be off work for 12 weeks while he recovers.

Charl is a very competent pilot and has lots of experience flying Helicopters.

I think he did a great job, and I hope you Charl and all involved make a speedy recovery.

Philly dilly

[Ernest Mac]

We Fly to Satisfy – Others Fly to Testify!
I have not previously bothered to answer to all the insulting rumours one reads on these Web-Sites, but enough is now Enough!
I see that the blood is scarcely in the water, when the sharks begin to circle. On some Sites, the insults are flying! One of the ‘directors’ of ‘Hell-base’ - that strange Business next to the N1 which is run by the ‘Devil in Disguise’ and registered as an “Industry Code 62:– Retail trade, except of motor vehicles and motor cycles:- repair of personal household goods” and whose registered business address is strangely in the V&A Waterfront, found time to stop repairing toasters and was one of the first uninvited rubber-neckers on our accident scene with his camera, clicking away for his little scrap book.
Then we have Golf69, whom I suspect is also attached to ‘Hell-base’, who immediately starts saying that Sport knew something was wrong but sent the pilot and his pax on a flight anyway. (not to mention the personal insults) Well, as far as I know, the only company that manages to use and abuse pilots who are willing to risk life and limb; appears to be that lot at ‘Hell-base’. Our pilots refuse to fly for various reasons all the time, and have the right to do so, even when we think they are being unreasonable; however, there is not one pilot in the Industry who can testify to ever being coerced into flying against his will by anyone at Sport.
Information for those who are uninformed enough to believe these ridiculous rumours:- Sport and Civair are the two oldest tenants of the V&A Waterfront Helipad, and started flying from the area next door to Court (the original Court Helicopters, not the illicitly named copy-cat) when the non-existent pad was a nightmare of fish traps, old boat parts and hazards. We cleared the site and we developed our own sections ourselves, and I was the one who called in the then DCA to inspect the site, in an attempt to have it declared a registered Helipad. Sport was also the first Operator to put floats on its helicopters, even before the CAA introduced SOP’s for the V&A Waterfront.
Sport is a legitimately Licensed Commercial Charter Operation, carrying full Insurance, and above average Passenger Liability Insurance for negligence. Our passengers do not have to sign Indemnity forms! We utilise Commercial Pilots only; all our documents are open to anyone wishing to view them; and they were not printed in Maitland! Sport also utilises a fully Licensed and registered AMO, who employs fully Licensed and registered AME’s. All our paperwork is in place, all our checks have passed with flying colours, and no one can point fingers at us, at all! We are a VAT vendor not a VAT “bender”, and are still in the Waterfront!
We have no need to form Clubs, register Businesses in other people’s names, sell Franchises to the uninformed, con old people out of their life savings, hide our taxes, attempt to sneak cash out of the country, or beat up our staff. (LH – how’s your jaw?) We are not out on bail, or appealing against several Court rulings, or boasting to our neighbours about our negative publicity, nor did we tie 2 Jet rangers together, nor have to sell off our Helicopters complete with their incomplete bookwork; we pay our rent, and we do not operate from an unapproved Industrial site using PPL’s.
For a point of interest, I have applied to build a Hanger at Culemborg, (which caused one prospective neighbour to waste money on building a fence across a piece of property which doesn’t even belong to him - which just goes to show the Importance of being Ernest.); but the Council will not approve the area for Helicopter landings and Operations, and therefore my application is still pending. The Council says they have not, nor will they, approve any Helicopter operations from Culemborg! Anyone find that strange?
We are not afraid of Competition, we can handle it, but what leaves a very sour taste in the mouth is that we are forced to compete with an Operator who ignores the CAA, the Police, the Insurance, the Laws, the Rules, and common Morality. I am already in a Court battle against this Operator, which he initiated by attempting to sue me for “loss of earnings”, but when it comes down to the wire, he does not even have bookwork to prove that he has any earnings at all – what is he doing with all those poor unsuspecting passenger’s money, because his club does not even have a bank account? I am reserving my rights regarding all the insulting telephone calls I receive after hours, which are recorded, as are all my phone calls.
Funny how, when I won my appeal against the costs of the now infamous “filming interdict” (see DeanW’s thread on PPrune “The huey is back in the News again” posted on 25/03/04) on 27th January 2006, not one of his staff or ‘directors’ put the information on the Internet; odd, isn’t it?
The statement we released on the day of HSX’s incident was all the info we had at that time, while we were still reeling with shock, and before we had spoken to the pilot and pax in person, and before we had viewed the damages. Obviously the media dogged us shamelessly and twisted in a few extra tales to the stories, because they interviewed all and sundry who had no knowledge, but made up a quick story in order to get their names in print! Therefore, any criticism is extremely misplaced! The media, of course, has not bothered to come back for a further statement, and we did not feel that it was appropriate to cross examine the pilot while he was strapped to a gurney in the hospital, waiting for a prognosis on his injuries. He can make his own statement later, if he wants to. We also did not have to sneak to the sight and “steal” our engine away; we will wait for the investigators’ full report on this horrible accident.
I would say only the following: there is not one pilot who can honestly say that he would definitely have been able to do x or y or z, in the case of an engine failure; unless it has happened to them. We do not fault the pilot; he saved his passengers, and that is the most important thing to us at Sport: not “could’ve, would’ve, and should’ve.” As far as I know, the only experts on forced landings are the Huey pilots; perhaps one should send one’s pilots to them for autorotation lessons? They used to mostly fly out to the Delta 200, now they do Cape Points all the time, what happens when their donkey fails?
“WITHOUT PREJUDICE: Tentatively, we know that the P2/P3 pipe from the T-fitting from the Governor to the Fuel Control Unit was found to be cracked. The CAA has yet to complete their investigation, but the preliminary check has revealed the cracked pipe.” Apparently, this is not a pipe which would be checked by routine maintenance, so don’t start any rumours about Engineers, please.
I now begin hearing rumours that this problem has occurred on other Longrangers; had I known that, I could have had the pipe replaced regularly as a precaution. I will now do my best to warn all Longranger Operators of this fault.
I challenge the rumour mongers to stop hiding behind their pseudonyms and print their accusations under their own names! Mine is Ernest Macdonald, not Elvis, and you are welcome to make fun of my passion for music, and my hobby, but at least it is legal and entertains people; unlike others, whose hobbies appear to be “screwing people over”. My favourite song is “Walk a mile in my Shoes” (before you abuse, criticise and accuse) but I’m happy to come over to the N1 and sing “Jailhouse Rock” as they load up the cop van once the Authorities finally get their act together.

[Deanw]

Ernest Mac, welcome to Pprune. Great first post :ok:

It's always good to have the view 'from the other side', as speculation and rumour, if not countered promptly, can get out of hand. I can see there is no love lost between you and the other crowd, but thanks for providing some info on the possible cause of the crash.

[118.9]

Whew!! That was brave Ernest, well done. Agree with Dean that it is a nice touch to share some preliminary assumptions about the cause of donkey-out, which will diminish speculation, but not eliminate it.

As you know this forum, like other similar ones, is essentially a blog, a rumour network.... anyone can pass an opinion; good, bad, accurate, totally wrong, off the wall...... This is not the press, so no accountability, no libel, no interviews, no.....

But it is a pity your otherwise excellent article is also aimed at slamming Helibase, why mix the two up? What on earth has the HSX incident got to do with Helibase? It's not going to bring HSX back, so why drag yourself to that level? Methinks making this connection is precisely the wrong thing to do because Helibase can now easily compare pax-to-hospital-after-forced-landing stats and come out ahead of your organisation.:confused:

The only indisputable facts we know are that the pilot saved all souls on board and in doing so took a very hard landing. I would fly with him anyday because I KNOW he has actually survived an engine-out with a full load. He is now a member of quite an exclusive club.

Hope the pilot and a new LR will be flying again soon, good luck!!

[B Sousa]

Come on over and view the rest of the story. Would you believe that the helibase crowd are jumping on the band wagon after this one??

[Ernest Mac]

Yes, 118.9 you could be right that I should not have mixed the two subjects; however, I needed to respond to certain people’s accusations that we “forced” the Pilot to fly and were aware of problems before the flight, and certain gloating telephone calls I received, which showed extremely bad taste. I will continue the second part of my article on the ‘Huey down’ thread.


I really do not care about the types of comparisons to which you refer – the fact remains that we have had a forced landing, but have been honest about it, and we are a Legitimate Operator.


The Insurance Assessor has ‘preliminarily’ confirmed the finding regarding the pipe, which was definitely cracked. I was happy to hear a rumour that every Operator we know is now replacing these pipes. I have certainly done so on my Jet Ranger, and would advise especially Long Ranger Operators to do so.

I would like to thank all those who expressed their support and concern, and I thank the Pilot.

[118.9]

Openness and transparancy will always be the winner in the end. Well done Sport. :ok: