Russian Helicopter sea accident [Archive]

russkiy

11th May 2006, 15:08

video:

http://news.ntv.ru/news/ViewVideo.jsp?nid=86955

YUZHNO-SAKHALINSK, May 11 (Itar-Tass) - One of the passengers on board a Russian helicopter that had fallen into water in the Sea of Okhotsk earlier Thursday, has died.
The Russian helicopter Mi-14 fell into the sea during Russo-Japanese exercises to drill operations to render assistance to a ship in distress. There were 13 people on board the helicopter, which overturned but remained afloat. Twelve of them have been rescued.
Right after the incident the exercises were stopped and all vessels were used to rescue the people. The rescued were brought to the Japanese ship Erimo and the Russian ship Agat.
The rescued people are being evacuated to the port of Korsakov. The patrol ship Bug is towing the helicopter to the same port.
Sea rescuers of Russia and Japan launched exercises in Aniva Gulf off the port of Korsakov earlier in the day to drill action to help a ship in distress and eliminate an oil spill.

The Nr Fairy

11th May 2006, 15:26

Try this thread in R&N, probably get merged here:

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=225543

Phoinix

11th May 2006, 16:15

Why "#%"!* did he try to do that... No crash is spectacular when there are lives involved BTW!

russkiy

11th May 2006, 16:44

[Presenter] The circumstances of the accident involving a Mi-14 helicopter are being investigated on Sakhalin. It crashed in the sea this morning during a Russian-Japanese exercise. One person was killed. Specialists were trying out measures to deal with an imaginary oil spill. TV journalists who were covering the exercise recorded the moment that the helicopter crashed. The accident happened as the Mi-14 was flying just above the surface of the water.

The transport prosecutor's office has instituted criminal proceedings. The provisional theory is that the accident could have been caused by a technical fault.

[Igor Zhdanov, acting director-general of the Sakhalin Basin emergency rescue directorate] The helicopter had not gained any height after taking off when, it is thought, its engine failed. The helicopter fell back into the water. Its nose tipped forward into the swell. The tips of the rotors clipped the water and the helicopter toppled over, disintegrating on the surface.

[Presenter] Thirteen people - crew members and rescuers - are thought to have been aboard the helicopter. The machine did not sink. Sailors from nearby vessels managed to rapidly evacuate 12 casualties. A little later Japanese divers recovered yet another person from the cabin, but his life could not be saved. Two injured casualties were taken to hospital in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. The half-submerged helicopter will shortly be towed to the port of Korsakov.

Airbubba

11th May 2006, 17:10

Did he do a water landing and accidentally leave the wheels down, perhaps?

http://www.sky.com/skynews/picture_gallery/picture_gallery/0,,70141-1221423-6,00.html

Aser

11th May 2006, 17:42

wow!
http://static.sky.com/images/pictures/1406065.jpg

I didn't understand...
So was it a forced landing and a post-take off that went wrong? or just a water landing?

Sammie_nl

11th May 2006, 18:15

*disclaimer* Im not a pilot, aviation professional or journalist */disclaimer*

The helicopter that went down is a Mil Mi-14 Haze, which is the amphibious version of the Mi-8 Hip. Therefor a water landing is nothing out of the ordinary, it was designed for such task. Much like the better known Sea King.

The Haze has a different landing gear then the Hip. The aft wheels retract into the boat like fuselage, while the front gear fold forward into the fuselage, but outside the boat like hull.

I can find no information about the seaworthyness, ecspecially in regards to wave height of the Mi-14 Haze. But if the info is correct about an engine failure at t/o this must put quite a heavy strain on the remaining engine.

rotorfloat

11th May 2006, 19:05

http://today.reuters.com/tv/videoChannel.aspx?storyid=88fbac2a75fe93b563bc94debf08423903 f5594d

Any hazard a guess as to cause?
I see lots of coning before touchdown, and can only guess that a control problem was making it rock fore and aft and eventually nose over...
Sad to hear, one fatality

Aser

11th May 2006, 19:57

http://static.sky.com/images/pictures/1406065.jpg

Yawing and conning , looks like a engine failure... and then too rough sea or attempted take off with one engine that went wrong?

just my 2 cents.

Regards
Aser

Hughes500

11th May 2006, 20:11

From the video it looks like he landed and was then water taxiing ( if that is the correct term ). If you look at the disc it is well forward to provide forward movement. Seems he used too much fwd disc when trying to take off and ploughed into quite a big swell.

CYHeli

11th May 2006, 23:30

With the forward momentum and the swell, the nose has dived. The pilot would be seeing a lot of water come over the windscreen. If he tried to pull it up, I'm tipping he had a forward dynamic roll-over. The nose is stuck and he can't lift it, so it noses over accelerating as the rotor head comes forward...

IMHO.

Condolances to the family.
:(

Rolling-Thunderbird

11th May 2006, 23:45

This video shows the actual event.

http://www.cnn.com/video/player/player.html?url=/video/world/2006/05/11/vo.russia.copter.crash.reut

Flingwing207

12th May 2006, 00:52

Note the landing gear is extended in the second part of the video - might this have happened inadvertantly after the hard landing? Certainly it must have helped cause the forward rollover - especially if the pilot was unaware it was extended.

Lafyar Cokov

12th May 2006, 02:02

From the video I saw (on Sky) it looked like the tail rotor had almost stopped well before it hit the sea! This may have been a TV illusion - but my first impressions were TR failure somewhere.

Lafyar Cokov

12th May 2006, 02:05

As I posted on R-Heads - it looks like the TR is going round very slowly prior to the accident - this may be a TV illusion but I wouldn't be surprised if it was related.

Loose rivets

12th May 2006, 03:17

It looks like a blade perturbation took a good part of the tails structure away before other stresses snapped it completely. Not that it would have made much difference.

The gear does seem to be down, and it may be that the pilot was hoping for more forward movement through the water, even up to the plane?

bb in ca

12th May 2006, 04:39

From what I saw the forward floats have completely failed to inflate.

The round item that's seen near the nose looks like a fixed cowl around a radar or something of the sort.

It explains the very rapid nosing over of the aircraft.

bb

P.S. If you haven't done Helicopter Underwater Escape Training before or recently make sure you get a course.

last third

12th May 2006, 04:59

Blades on the machine appear to rotate to the right. The machine is twin eng. An eng failure in the hover without enough pwr to hover OEI would result in rotor bleed and descent (explains the coning angle and yaw to the right as airframe yaws in the direction of M/R drag, ie at high coning angle t/r can no longer balance m/r TQ).

If the machine suffered a loss of t/r or insufficient t/r thrust in the the hover then it would yaw left (video shows yaw to right). Excessive t/r thrust fixed pitch would result in machine yawing right and continuing to yaw right unless collective lowered, pitch on blades indicates machine had high collective setting on touch down which indicates machine went right without lowering collective-Therefore t/r malfunction unlikely.

Hard landing may have damaged belly and underside of machine, floats etc, as a result machine started to take on water, CG changed (more weight in nose cone due water). Pilot attempts to fly away OEI while taking on water, aircraft capsizes as pitch is applied and nose becomes too heavy. Main rotor contact with water and airframe destruction results.

Summary-Aircraft conducting OGE hover OW, ENG fail, Aircraft now OEI with insufficient power to fly away from hover, RRPM decay, M/R drag increases and aircraft yaws right, co-incident with aircraft touching down with large ROD, underside/undercarriage damaged, aircraft takes on water, aircraft CG changes (nose heavy), Pilot attempts to fly away OEI as machine starts to take on water, Power available < power required, aircraft rotates foward-M/R contact with water-Resultant crash....

My 2 cents.

Condolences to family members

Lasty

:sad:

blue up

12th May 2006, 06:17

If one of the forward windows blew in, against the force of the water on it........?

The other thought is that with the nose so low under water, the angle between the centre of the rotor and the pivot point (usually the C of G but now the nose) is very different and might have tripped the heli up. Rather like pushing a wheelbarrow with all the weight at the front and then hitting a large stone with the tyre.

Than god that I failed the Bristow helicopter course. We don't do that sort of flying in a 767!

d246

12th May 2006, 07:14

It looks like engine failure. Look at the coneing angle of the blades, lots of pitch low rpm.

cwatters

12th May 2006, 07:32

To me it looked like he was trying to taxi into wind/current. It looks like he had a lot of forward cyclic on. Then had a dynamic roll over due to reaching the stops. Has this ever been done forwards before?

http://www.nps.navy.mil/avsafety/gouge/rollover.htm

skadi

12th May 2006, 08:06

TyroPicard

12th May 2006, 08:20

The gear is definitely down when the a/c inverts - for me the question is was it selected down or did it "fall" down during/because of the water landing?

TP

Phoinix

12th May 2006, 08:29

http://static.sky.com/images/pictures/1406064.jpg

http://static.sky.com/images/pictures/1406065.jpg

http://static.sky.com/images/pictures/1406066.jpg

http://static.sky.com/images/pictures/1406067.jpg

http://static.sky.com/images/pictures/1406068.jpg

http://static.sky.com/images/pictures/1406069.jpg

Float bags were inflated prior to water landing. Lots of coaning on main rotor blades - low rpm. That is clear as todays blue sky.

The thing that bothers me is, why did the pilot try to takeoff again if he was having problems.

Why attempt a SE water take off? There are plenty of ships handy.....he could have off loaded the pax or even burnt off fuel while sitting on the water.....or even elected to make a slow water taxi to suitable land?

... my point exactly.

Big Tudor

12th May 2006, 08:57

Just a thought, no more. Looking at the video the heli looks fairly unstable in the water, perhaps due to the swell. Could it be that the sea was not calm enough to allow him to remain there and he elected to get airborne?

d246

12th May 2006, 09:30

What's all this nonsense about trying to get airborne on a single engine or taxi. The thing crash landed due engine failure end of story.

jetflite

12th May 2006, 09:36

http://www.sky.com/skynews/picture_gallery/picture_gallery/0,,70141-1221423-3,00.html - This is the impact photo

http://www.sky.com/skynews/picture_gallery/picture_gallery/0,,70141-1221423-4,00.html This is the water surging over nose

http://www.sky.com/skynews/picture_gallery/picture_gallery/0,,70141-1221423-5,00.html This is where the blades impact

http://www.sky.com/skynews/picture_gallery/picture_gallery/0,,70141-1221423-6,00.html This shows the helicopter upside down. in this photo there doesn't appear to be visible damage to the under side of the aircraft. Eg: Radar, Floats etc, although it is clear the gear is down.

(i'm not an expert in taking off form water in multi-engine helicopters)
would it be right for one to assume in that sort of situation where water surges over the nose so violently, you would lower collective..decrease power.Abort the T/O attempt ? As you would do for dynamic roll over ? i only state this to learn about the procedures in this sort of situation ?

dakotaman

12th May 2006, 10:35

d246, I do hope you're not a crash investigator. I flew the USCG HH52 (one- engined mini-SeaKing) back in the 80s and practised a fair bit of rescue work on the water. By reputation the Hip/Haze is a robust aircraft with reasonable performance margins (better than the SeaKing). This guy had a lot of people on board, he was overpitching to achieve a take-off and then appears to settle back heavily into the water after that aborted lift-off (water ingress into cabin at that point would have been likely). He had perhaps lowered his undercarriage whilst waterborne to give him better stability (or it extended after the crash). He then appears to water-taxi so fast trying to unstick that he was enveloped by his bow-wave and pitchpoled. The paradox is that if he'd gone a tad faster the bow-wave would have swamped both engine intakes, put the fires out and, perhaps, sustained less blade impact damage. Either way, it was a hard day in the office for this guy and it was a tragedy that a life was lost.

Sailor Vee

12th May 2006, 10:37

I believe that last third is about spot on, apart from maybe the machine taking on water, I suspect he was way over weight to attempt OEI take-off (impact following possible engine failure was heavy).

jetflite, absolutely correct, you would lower collective and abort, at least I would!

Why didn't he shut down and abandon ship? (face-saving, perhaps?).

d246

12th May 2006, 13:24

The cone angle can only be explained by high pitch and v low rotor rpm, a single or possibly dual engine failure. The torque goes of the clock if you try taking of overweight, the blades don't behave like that. There would be no usable head energy once on the water to attempt anything.

Flashover999

12th May 2006, 14:48

Could the initial impact have been caused by vortex ring state? Its looks like he is sinking under power and the coning extreme happens just as he is about to hit the water. Im not sure what happens to a machine when in VRS as it approaches the ground? It looks similar to the Sea king accident that happened at a UK airshow. Then the Helo hit the ground hard and the structure failed, causing tail rotor failure and destruction.
Quite agree with the movement of the CG but surely if he was moving forward the water taken on-board would have moved back-wards causing a tail down attitude! WE will never know until the investigation is complete but condolences to the Families.

Flash

Flingwing207

12th May 2006, 15:18

Could the initial impact have been caused by vortex ring state? VRS at the hover? No. It takes a pretty serious ROD to get into VRS, not going to get it at the hover over the ocean.

DeltaFree

12th May 2006, 22:34

Totally agree with Last Third. Even the Sea King leaks when dunked, the advice is to attempt an OEI take-off sooner rather than later. Two reasons, CofG change usually nose heavy, and stab electronics are in the nose so would be soaked pretty quickly. Bearing in mind leakage occurs on serviceable machines an impact like this one had would almost certainly lead to water ingress.
A take-off in this state is a recognised procedure and I doubt if our unfortunate pilot would be able to conjure up an acceptable weight figure whilst sat on the water. He tried an acceptable manoeuvre and it went wrong, for what reason we cannot be sure. I think most of us have been there and been lucky.
Lets not blame a pilot for doing what he is trained to do, lets learn where it went wrong and hopefully be better equipped to deal with that situation if we are ever unfortunate enough to be there.

maxeemum

13th May 2006, 02:37

..... a single or possibly dual engine failure. ...

D246,
Mate you can't water taxi with zero engines working. The clip cleary shows the machine attempting a water take off post impact, trying to do this with zero engines operating is a tad diifficult. Hence dual engine failure, I think not.

Max

:uhoh:

d246

13th May 2006, 06:35

The film shows nothing of the sort, 'mate', all control was effectively lost after impact.

Stringfellow Dork

13th May 2006, 08:49

Seems to me you might be getting confused about the "impacts".

Impact 1 - hard landing possibly caused by one of the helicopters two engines failing.

Impact 2 - catastrophic and possibly caused by rollover due to insufficient power (see impact 1) during a water take off.

mickjoebill

13th May 2006, 11:33

@last third
In my opinion You are right. Due to the hard OEI landing in the water, the belly ore the Radardome must have been damaged and the H/C took water. Check the high waterline just before the MR struck the water.... And in addition the extended Landinggear also made an SingleEngineWaterTakeoff ( a procedure like with a seaking or S61 ) much harder or even impossible.

skadi

One of the videos shows the left side door beginning to open.
Would this be a planned action during either a forced or normal approach to water?

It would also allow the rapid take on of water.

Mickjoebill

slgrossman

13th May 2006, 15:30

skadi

13th May 2006, 16:59

Just a small observation, but I believe what several have referred to as floats are actually external fuel tanks. They seem to be located in the same place as on the non-maritime version of the Mi-8/14. Additionally, are inflatable floats generally installed on boat-hulled aircraft to begin with?

-Stan-

The Seaking for example has also inflatable floats installed at the MainGear Housing. They were deployed, when no SEWTO after an emergency landing could be done, MGB trouble for example

Mama Mangrove

13th May 2006, 17:47

Back in 197.... forget the year, Bristow had an S61N on a medevac ditch in the North Sea after it lost a pocket or more from a main blade. The sea conditions were such that it turned over. In those days we didn't wear survival suits, just the UVIC 'floater' neoprene jacket. The pilot did a good job in hanging on to the casualty on the upturned hull and stopping himself being washed off by hanging on to the undercarriage. He was unconscious when winched into the rescue helicopter and actually lost his licence as a result of the accident. After that floats were fitted and the sea anchor was mounted such that it could be released from the cockpit, so I'd say that external floats are not that uncommon on boat-hulled helicopters.

Aser

13th May 2006, 18:07

Back in 197.... forget the year, Bristow had an S61N on a medevac ditch in the North Sea after it lost a pocket or more from a main blade. The sea conditions were such that it turned over. He was unconscious when winched into the rescue helicopter and actually lost his licence as a result of the accident.

Interesting history... Did he lost the license due to injuries?

JimL

14th May 2006, 07:32

Mama,

As I remember it Lee Smith lost consciousness as a result of the lift; the sea anchor was always launched from the pilot's port window; two main innovations after the accident were the installation of the 'cling rope' (because of the difficulty of finding a hand-hold after a capsize) and the painting of the underside of the S61 to make it visible once it (inevitably) turned over.

A long time ago and the memory fades with age but didn't the casevac (with a broken leg) make it to the dinghy leaving Lee attempting to cling on to the upturned hull?

Lee's decision to ditch might have been influenced by fatal accidents (around that time) caused by spindle failures on the S61.

After that accident a loss of (blade) pocket was viewed as an incident that did not warrant a ditching. A similar policy change occured after an S61 was ditched because of a loss of a fan-cooler-belt (the flight manual was subsequently amended).

Jim

SARREMF

14th May 2006, 07:33

A very sad but interesting video.

OK, here is how I see it.

Aircraft suffers a single engine failure at a weight that is too heavy for continued flight - committed. Ac does exactly what it says on the can and moves rapidly towards surface. Pilot attempts to cushion impact [conning angle] and makes a reasonable go at the landing - from my own experience it happens at exactly the rate seen in the video [although mine was on to land!]

Ac next seen pitching fore and aft. He probably didnt dissengage the stab system whilst on the water. It thus tries to fight the swell and it got out of phase. It probably stopped when he dissengaged it.

Pilot then attempts water take off. Advice is to get ac up to speed on the water before drooping NR to lowest in flight value to give the required energy to break the water suction. Way to judge this - bow wave just going over the windscreen. Look at the video, that is when he rotates forward. Bet there is a note in his manual that says if the nose bay fills with water it may not be possible to complete the take off! What you do not see is if he tried to reduce the weight for take off. If it wont hover on both it will not get airborne on one! The other thought was, why was it being filmed? There is an awful lot of safety style boats around etc. Was this a trial of its water take off ability?

Undercarriage. 2 thoughts. One, on impact the gear selector is forced down by the impact - without the pilot realising?[lets face it, he is a bit busy about then!] Second, he puts gear down for stability during the pitching about in the swell. I suspect he probably meant to retract it before he began the water take off.

All in all, very sad. Thoughts with family.

John Eacott

14th May 2006, 08:54

JimL,

IIRC, Lee hung on to the passenger by holding on to the external cable to for the cargo release! The co pilot made it to the dinghy, but Lee was in the water in shirt and slacks for about 30 minutes before being winched. As you said, modifications to all S61's after that, but also we finally got goon suits for the drivers :rolleyes:

Only the week before, those of us in the Brent Field had been firmly told that immersion suits were not required, and to stop agitating. A week later we had a telex requiring sizes for all crew, issued within a month!

Re the medevac, rumour had it at the time that it was a quite minor injury, certainly not a broken limb.

skadi

14th May 2006, 09:33

A very sad but interesting video.

The other thought was, why was it being filmed? There is an awful lot of safety style boats around etc. Was this a trial of its water take off ability?

It was beeing filmed, because it was a bilateral ( Japanese/Russian ) SAR exercise

Thomas coupling

14th May 2006, 10:06

The reasons for the water landing are inconsequential here. From my time as a waterbird instructor I suspect the a/c suffered serious hull damage (hitting the water at that speed and height) and even for the few seconds it was on the deck, 1000's of gallons of water would have entered the front of the hull adversely affecting the fwd C of G with the very tragic consequences.
I'm at a loss to understand that given that the helo survived the landing and there was a ship 100 metres away, that the pilot did NOT elect to shut down and evacuate an otherwise intact airframe. There would have been no loss of life in that instance.

In my experience, within seconds, the water would penetrate the avionics bay (fwd) and knock out the stab systems causing aggravated control inputs in an already tenuous C of G situation. This together with the bow wave drag - determined his destiny. Sad really.

NickLappos

3rd Jun 2006, 20:55

Here is a great video of what appears to be a test of a Mil helo. Not a pretty outcome:

No porn here please ... thanks :ok:

Try this which takes you straight to the file instead ;)

http://videos.m90.org/videos/helicopter.wmv

PPRuNe Radar

HeliEng

3rd Jun 2006, 21:11

What the bl***y hell was he doing??????? :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

All looks a bit dangerous to me!

diginagain

3rd Jun 2006, 21:19

More here, since it was covered some weeks ago.

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=225537

flyer43

3rd Jun 2006, 21:26

Thanks digininagain. At least most of the video available on the original link is from more savoury locations than Nick's link!!

Nick, don't tell me, you were surfing the net and this site just jumped out and hit you!!

Seriously though, I'm not sure if the original video is still available on the other link, but it should show the initiation of the problem when the Mil14 appears to suffer a power failure in the hover. Heavy coning of the disc followed by an early bath. The rest is pure agony.......

NickLappos

3rd Jun 2006, 21:59

Thanks for the cleaner link, dig, but the side photos are nowhere near as interesting.

I think that helo is being flown off, the pilot is trying to get some translational lift to get airborne. The plowing is his attempt at some increased water speed, where he needs extra lift because of the water his aircraft has taken on and the OEI condition. The final plop is a lift-tow where he lets the nose go too far down and he loses control, just like a dynamic rollover - dynamic flip-over?

TukTuk BoomBoom

4th Jun 2006, 09:32

Thanks Nick
I have a bit of experience with russian crews and russian trained pilots and im relieved to hear a sound explanation for the crash.
I was thinking he was half drunk and showing off, seen that before, but the way you explained it makes alot of sense.
They are an odd mix, incredible technical ability and prowess then the next minute dangerous like nothing ive ever seen.
I did read that the pilots died.
Why not just shut down then and wait to get picked up?