Apache clips power lines

[Bronx]

BBC News - Army helicopter makes emergency landing in Suffolk (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-17123994)

Apache crash lands in field - News - Sudbury Mercury (http://www.sudburymercury.co.uk/news/breaking_news_apache_crash_lands_in_field_1_1216283)

[Nopax,thanx]

I hear from a 'local' that Wherestead is close to a 'caravan park'......


They'd better get the airframe recovered pronto before someone nicks it and weighs in the aluminium :p

[Navy_Adversary]

It wasn't HRH was it?:8

[Phantom Phlyer]

Can't see any damage to the main rotors, 2 separate tail rotors (!) or FCR from the photos. A bit left wing low is all...

Underwires crossing was not taught on CTR so can only assume that he drifted from a BP or bust his MSD over the pylons!!! :uhoh:

PP

[622]

re: It wasn't HRH was it?

If it was....the power line installer will be sacked... :)

[Sandy Parts]

re:it wasn't HRH was it?
Any rather large houses nearby containing some young filly likely to be impressed by someone showing off their chopper? Isn't there family history on that issue....?

[green granite]

How well do powerlines show up on NVGs?

[wahwah64]

wires clipped in decent to landing, all safe, aircraft has been, how shall we say.....supercharged.
Hence a low loader recovery.

[[email protected]]

Not as well as the pylons themselves and even they can be difficult to spot in poor light levels and precipitation.

Not sure if the apache crews are using NVG and the 'system' or just the 'system' which is IR and therefore susceptible to precipitation removing any thermal contrast.

The fact is that all the wires are marked on the maps that their FOB mandates they carry.

[wahwah64]

all depends on the thermal crossover at the time. ranges from excellent to invisible

[dead_pan]

What about GPS? Or is that too obvious?

[racedo]

Hope they missed the School, Hospital, Old People's home that miraculously sprung up in the 20 minutes before the incident :rolleyes:

[racedo]

What about GPS? Or is that too obvious?

Given media hyping on about GPS disruptors today please don't give them another story to rant on about as reason for the incident.

[NutLoose]

Seems a shame to write off those 5 main rotorblades and 7 tail rotorblades that were damaged in the incident and strike them from inventory. :E

[racedo]

Seems a shame to write off those 5 main rotorblades and 7 tail rotorblades that were damaged in the incident and strike them from inventory. http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/evil.gif

Oh you cynic..............

[iRaven]

No it can't be "Ginge" as he is a nose-gunner :p

[Could be the last?]

Guessing the AH doesn't have a Wire Strike Protection System then?

[Aquatone1]

The Apache has cable cutters on the upper and lower fuselage. I wonder which one, if either, operated in this case?

[west lakes]

From the number of customers affected this would have, in all probability, been an 11,000V or 6,600 volt line on wood poles, these will have been below 45ft in height.
As the wires are all below about 15mm in diameter and down to 5mm they don't show on NVG apparatus (we have trialled it to find faults at night).

The sheer amount of lines at these voltages would make it too big a task to put them all on GPS.

As an example the area I work in is about 1300 square kilometers, we have about 1700km of lines of these voltages

[TheWizard]

“Our engineers are currently on site and have established that a 132,000 volt overhead power line has been damaged.
Seems a bit bigger than a 15mm cable??
The pylon behind the engineer in the video doesn't look much like a wooden pole either!!

[green granite]

I thought that as well Westie but the report says:

"Speaking last night a spokesman from the power company said: “We received a report from police at 11.02pm that a helicopter had come into contact with overhead power lines.

“Our engineers are currently on site and have established that a 132,000 volt overhead power line has been damaged.

“This interrupted power supplies to 373 customers, and others across a wider area would have had a flickering supply for a few seconds which then returned to normal."

Doesn't make sense if only a few hundred customers were affected. On the other hand there are 132KV lines visible in the photo of the downed chopper, assuming of course it's genuine.

[Mikhail Sharpowicz]

The IR night vision system should show wires etc. pretty well, but if they were obscured against the background temperature, they might not be visible at all in the seconds prior to collision.
I don't think Apache fitted with 2012 Garmin either!!
The aircraft looks totally undamaged in the BBC photos, so probably snipped the wire on the undercarriage or gun wire cutters. speculate speculate!!

[west lakes]

Ah apologies for not reading all the info, Still surprised at the small numbers but it is possible on some systems.

Watching the video if the close up of the two cables is a result of the strike it is possibly the earth wire that was struck, bringing it into contact with one of the live cables.

[Phantom Phlyer]

There is a photo of the pylon in question on the Daily Mail website:

Apache chopper from Prince Harry's helicopter unit crash lands after hitting power lines | Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2104745/Apache-chopper-Prince-Harrys-helicopter-unit-crash-lands-hitting-power-lines.html)

If you look closely at the front end shot of the AH, there is a scrape / burn mark underneath the starboard engine nacelle and on top of both IEFABs. This aligns with the wire cutter just above the MTADs optics.

PP

[NorthSouth]

The power line in question is marked on the charts.
NS

[wahwah64]

WISPS worked a dream. Aircraft being recovered by JARTS. Aftershock akin to flare release

[oldmansquipper]

You guys are not taking this seriously enough! 373 locals had their power supply interupted, for goodness sake...:rolleyes:

[Two's in]

That would be why you always cross at the pylon - assuming of course you have seen the wires in time. Much easier to see a pylon than a 0.5" cable at night.

[clareprop]

My goodness but that chap who was camping had a lucky escape...

Does the convention still apply that the pilot will now (and for evermore) be known as "Sparky"?

I knew a previous Sparky, a long time ago, who took out some power lines in Norway while chasing a dog down a road in (I believe) his Sea King. Unfortunately, he also took out the tail empanage and ended up in a rather deep snow drift and subsequently, rather deep something else. True.

[[email protected]]

Two's In - exactly right - every military pilot is taught to cross wires at the pylons for exactly that reason, the earth wire is often very difficult to see.

[Speedbird777]

Are the co-pilot gunners also trained to fly or is it a different training path?

[ShyTorque]

You guys are not taking this seriously enough! 373 locals had their power supply interupted, for goodness sake...

Yes, but the real concern is why they were getting 353.88 volts each?

We don't get anything like that much round here.

[Two's in]

373 locals with nothing to do means 4,476 fingers idly tappng waiting for the power to come back on.

/SB777 -Yes, both crew are trained and qualified to fly the Apache.

[tucumseh]

Ministry of Defence | About Defence | Corporate Publications | Air Safety and Aviation Publications | Military Aviation Authority | Corporate Information (http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/AboutDefence/CorporatePublications/AirSafetyandAviationPublications/MAA/CorporateInformation/)


See Air Safety Annual Report, page 3;

“At this stage I have identified 3 strategic Air Safety operating risks.......(3) helicopter collisions with wires and obstructions. Ensuring they attract an appropriate profile and emphasis on their mitigation will be a priority for me in the coming period.”

And Annex A;

“A 2008 report....28 recommendations including technology and research....some significant ones remain outstanding, particularly in the technology and research area...”.



At the moment I can’t reconcile this with the fact it is well over 20 years since the multi-function, podded laser detector was offered to MoD and the fact the design team has been disbanded / made redundant while MoD’s R&D effort in this technology area has been more or less stopped. At the time, the pod would have been considered heavy for most helicopters (the requirement was FW) but technology has moved on since I saw the prototype working in 1985. If anyone in MAA is reading this, dig around the old files and engage the designer. He has his own company now and routinely advises NATS and other countries on similar applications of the same basic device. MoD should also bear in mind they probably retain the Intellectual Property Rights!

[ross_M]

Doesn't a 132,000 V conductor lead to a significant magnetic field; is there a way this could be used as a detector / warning system? Might be better and more specific than the IR signature?

[[email protected]]

Tuc, the answer is much simpler - the Apache has a digital mapping system that is relied on in flight - the problem is that the system has to be populated by the crew, marking wires, masts, airfields, targets etc before flight.

But, there are only 95 bits of info that can be put on that map which restricts you to a specific track if you are to retain accurate obstruction information. Once you deviate off-track you are effectively flying blind, at night with just the IR system to help you.

Of course the FOB mandates that appropriate mapping is carried on the aircraft and that seems to be met by the bloke in the back stuffing a half and quarter mil into his pocket - whether they are actually referred to in flight or not I cannot comment on but anecdotal reports would suggest not.

I suspect the crew involved had very carefully marked the large wires they hit but may have seen the smaller ones and mis-idented those and continued their approach.

Since MAA is all about airworthiness - who signed off a nav/mission planning system with very limited capability for use in UK when a proper, digital database, correctly updated could have been procured? Hardly ALARP is it?

[tucumseh]

Crab

Many thanks. My comment, while prompted by this incident, was on the general subject as I don't think most other aircraft have the Apache system you mention (which I know little about).

The MAA 's recent involvement would be to have the Safety Cases and implementation of the MoD's Safety Management System audited. I can't comment on Apache, except to note that during development and production they were under the same anti-airworthiness regime (at 2 Star level) that was concurrently (mis)managing Nimrod RMPA and Chinook HC Mk3. However, to be fair, they had some excellent people on the programme and I'd like to think they chose to ignore the routine orders not to deliver airworthiness if it meant slippage or cost over-runs. Others did and delivered to time, cost and performance (which includes safety), but not Chinook or Nimrod; which, ironically, by following these orders delivered both slippage and sub-airworthiness.

But it was also routine, at the time, to salami slice programmes at the whim of beancounters and such databases were easy targets when the policy was "Wait until there is a problem (i.e. an incident or accident) and then we'll have another look". (In this sense, Haddon-Cave was "another look"!). I'd like to think those I knew on the programme would have recorded it as a risk, but I know from personal experience their 2 Star would not even give it a second glance, despite it being his primary role to provide management oversight and assess major risks once a month. (In 6 years, he never once assessed any of mine, despite my being on the PAC's radar as a test case; but then, if he had, he'd have gone berserk at my refusal to ignore safety and the aircraft would still be sat in a hangar somewhere a la Chinook). I reckon I'm not far off.

Regards

[HEDP]

Crab,

The flight/nav system unfortunately does not work in isolation and it is/was the overall computing power of the aircraft that was the limit. Future iterations with more powerful computers and this will not be a problem I suspect. A capability was needed that had limitations but was still far ahead of other fleets.

A remarkably accurate summation of events as it happens!

What the Apache has that others do not is wire cutters, a cracking advert for wider use, it has paid for itself in this one incident alone

[TheWizard]

Other aircraft do have wire cutters!!

[HEDP]

Very astute however not all that ought to.

[Chugalug2]

Um, please excuse the interjection of a mere FW pilot, and an ex-one at that, but is not the Apache required to go to war anywhere in the world, and are not power lines everywhere, well almost everywhere?
Even if the a/c computing power were raised by orders of magnitude I doubt if it could contain data for every power line in the world, even were that available. Hence surely the point of generic systems for dealing with the problem, ie wire cutters (fitted) and laser or IR detectors (not fitted). I really can't see much advantage to using a system that protects you only on track within the UK but scarcely anywhere else (as I assume you can get a European update, for example).
It seems to me that the kind of device that was available 20 years ago according to tuc, is a far more appropriate answer to this hazard. Needless to say of course we don't have it. Another triumph for MOD procurement. No wonder the MAA is worried. I would be too in their shoes!

[tucumseh]

I won't comment of the Operational Requirement or what technology the solution should embrace, but to be fair to "procurers" I don't think this 1980s requirement got past OR in London. There are numerous examples of OR being embarrassed by dreaming up the best spec they can think of, only to discover it is already in service; or in one recent Nimrod example, declared obsolete and replaced 10 years before! What usually happens is it dies a death to avoid embarrassment. The same happened with the radar required for the planned Bucc replacement in the LD role. It works the other way as well, endorsing requirements that defy the laws of physics. The solution is proper scrutiny.

This general subject was discussed a few years ago when Lord Drayson's Defence Technology Strategy was issued. It, too, included as an aspiration future R&D to mitigate a flight safety hazard, and the authors (MoD scientists) were thoroughly embarrassed when it was pointed out the system had been in service since 1996 - but with only one aircraft fleet as OR had been unsuccessful in their 1999 bid to have it fitted to all aircraft. That "requirement" is notably absent from the MAA report.

This is the kind of disconnect that concerns me.

[Chugalug2]

Point taken, tuc. My bad!
AL1 to Post #41:-
Before the word "MOD" insert the word "the"
After the word "MOD" delete the word "procurement"

[[email protected]]

Chug don't forget that GW1 was the perfect sales platform for Apache capability and the AAC saw only the goodies on offer (of which there were many) and probably assumed the other issues could be made to go away once it was in service in UK.

Operating on a nice big, flat desert with essentially no enemy threat and clearly defined lines of battle played to all the Apache's strengths - close quarters fighting against other similarly armed forces (ie not Afghanistan) where identifying the enemy is crucial shows the limits of the IR system and the need for an NVG feed to the pilot with all the digital flight and weapons symbology overlaid.

That, coupled with the MMW radar and decent mapping would make it a go- anywhere helicopter but the lack of computing power is very limiting unless you have a simple route in and out - going off-piste on the battlefield with no accurate mapping is dangerous.

Someone thinks this is an acceptable way of doing business in peacetime UK which is why there are many anecdotal horror stories of masts flashing past the cockpit when low level at night.

So far, the SARF is the only force to raise it's OPV to 300 ft because of the plethora of unmarked and unlit masts in UK - many to do with wind farms and their anemometer masts.

ALARP anyone?

[Chugalug2]

[email protected]:-
ALARP anyone?
Indeed crab, and by the same token the words "Fit for Purpose?" spring to mind! The sort of question that should keep an independent airworthiness authority awake at night. Oh, wait, we haven't got one, have we?

[longgone]

Crab, I take your points and given your username I think you probably have a reasonable awareness of the platform. I do, however, think you might be underselling the AH somewhat. It may well be they only airframe in our inventory that it truly world class. Yes, its not quite perfect but what is??!!

Surely, by definition, facing an equally well equipped Army, Navy or Airforce is going to be more of a struggle than the turkey shoots we have recently been engaged in!