Super Frelon down at fire in Silvermine

[Heli_Sticktime]

This from Cape Talks web site:

One of the helicopters water-bombing the massive fire in the Silvermine Reserve has crash-landed.

The pilot has escaped unhurt. Details are sketchy but its believed there was a fire in the cockpit.

The helicopter was assisting scores of firefighters who have been battling the blaze since early this morning.

An eyewitness says he saw the helicopter experienced problems immediately after fetching water from the ocean.

Four people sustained minor injuries following the Working on Fire helicopter crash.:eek:

[Heli_Sticktime]

If you have followed the whole Helibase/Gary van der Merwe saga you would know that it was a Frelon, the only civilian based one invloved in commercial ops, see latest news below, pics are of the actual aircraft.

Cape Town - Four people were slightly injured when a helicopter fighting a veld fire in the Table Mountain National Park made an emergency landing on Monday, said fire-fighting officials.

The helicopter was one of two being used by the government-sponsored Working on Fire (WoF) programme to douse the wild fire in the park near Cape Town.

WoF spokesperson Evelyn John Holtzhausen said the Super Frelon helicopter crewed by four WoF firefighters made a forced landing above the reservoir at Silvermine in the park at about 10:00.

"The helicopter crew of four - whose names will be released - suffered minor burns and one has a broken ankle," said Holtzhausen.

"They were airlifted to 2 Military Hospital in Wynberg. The helicopter was enveloped in flames."

Holtzhausen said he assumed the second helicopter was used to fly the crew to the hospital, about 3km or 4km away by air.

WoF uses helicopters to drop water on fires to help ground crews. Monday's fire was believed to have been caused by a lightning strike during a storm on Sunday night.

Holtzhausen said civil aviation authorities were expected on the scene on Monday to investigate the cause of the incident.

He said the fire was now out, thanks partly to rain.

Netcare 911 spokesperson Nick Dollman said the helicopters were collecting water for a reservoir to dump on the flames.

"After picking up a load of water one of the helicopters appeared to lose power and dumped the water before performing an emergency crash landing."

Dollman said Netcare paramedics attended to the injured at the scene before they were flown to hospital.http://nl.airliners.net/photos/middle/1/3/5/0973531.jpg


Here is a pic of the cockpit

http://nl.airliners.net/photos/middle/3/4/9/1168943.jpg

[Heli_Sticktime]

Here is some more background info on the aircraft from another forum

The WORKING ON FIRE programme has added a SA321JA Super Frelon to its fleet of airborne fire fighters, when the sole flying example in South Africa (and arguably the only civilian operated in the world) was delivered to Stellenbosch Airfield shortly after 17h00 today.

This Super Frelon, ZS-HTN (c/n 169) is operated by Executive Hedlicopters, which has its main base at Culembourg, near the Cape Town harbour. It was once acquired as the personal helicopter for the erstwhile Zairean President, Mobuto Sese-Seko where it briefly operated as 9T-SPF.

It was eventually withdrawn from use and found its way to the South African Air Force, but never entered service because it was said it would not be feasible to bring it up to the same standard as the SA321L Super Frelons then still in use by the SAAF. The airframe soon found itself with the SAAF Museum, but was then disposed of to a civilian company called ANCOM JET, where the intention was to use it commercially mostly in the heavy lift role. This operation did not take off and the helicopter lingered on at Cape Town International airport for quite a while before it was restored to airworthy condition and flown to Lanseria Airport.

Once again it failed to fly commercially, and once again stood around the airfield for several years without flying, before being acquired by a Cape Town helicopter company, and meticulously restored to flying condition.

It flew again in November 2005, appeared briefly at the Ysterplaat Air Show validation day a month later, and then flew sporadically, until it joined the WORKING ON FIRE programme early in December 2006. It will be based at Stellenbosch airfield for the duration of the Cape Fire season after the Stellenbosch municipality agreed to allow WOF helicopter operations from this airfield. Like the MI 8 MTV-1 previously used, water will be dropped from a 3000 litre Bambi bucket.

[LittleMo]

Now this is a RUMOR network so don't hang me if I'm a little off target here...
As I recall, this was the same Frelon that was parked outside Foster Aero at FALA for as long as I can remember. As I recall, when chatting to the previous owner of the chopper, part of the reason the thing couldn't be restored to airworthyness was that some of the log books were missing from the time it flew for the tin-pot dictator up in deepest darkest.

That raises the question, did Mr Vd Merwe come across those books in a box in Mobuto's attic or did he get them the same way he got some of the Huey's logbooks and other documents?

Food for thought...

Mo

[4HolerPoler]

Eurocopter née Aerospatiale and Turbomeca have both written legal letters to the extent that this aircraft is not airworthy, struck from their support base and most certainly not suitable for commercial ops. And they have threatened legal action in the event that an incident/accident brings their names into disrepute.

We'll have to wait & see what happens. Sad to see a grand old lady die in the pusuit of someone's reckless greed.

4HP

[Goffel]

Watch this space when it the REAL owners surface, and find that their beloved Frelon is missing from the books...eisch, that is when the story really hots up...:eek:

Goffel by de office.:eek: :E

[Bronx]

The pilot's account is here and some pictures http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?p=3291552


B.

[Mikeb]

Trying to check if on of the crew was Daryl Rea from the UK. He was an instructor on robinson's in Wales for a few years before moving to SA.
Any info would be appreciated.

[Newforest]

Daryl Rea? The report says Daryl Ray.:confused:

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?p=3291552

[Mikeb]

One of the South Africa newspaper reports quotes the name as "Rea" not "Ray" just trying to check if it's an old friend.

[Newforest]

You are right, the Cape Times quotes Daryl Rea, fortunately however it is spelt, he is O.K.

http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=13&art_id=vn20070516010332559C599073