A119 incident in Brasil

[lelebebbel]

Police aircraft trying to take off with a road accident victim.

https://www.cnnbrasil.com.br/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2024/01/Video-sem-titulo-%E2%80%90-Feito-com-o-Clipchamp-1.mp4

Looks like they didn't have quite enough juice there. Lucky, all things considered.

[Agile]

ahh just on the edge of getting some speed and getting away with it, alas we can hear loss of RRPM and see increasing rotor disk coning.
Its hot in Brazil = thin air.

[ShyTorque]

It’s by no means the first time a helicopter pilot has attempted a forward transition without having sufficient power and it probably won’t be the last.

Seeing that reminded me of when I first began flying a police helicopter (now well over twenty five years ago) at a newly formed unit. I was tasked to take a seriously injured road accident casualty to hospital, on a stretcher. He had stepped out from behind a bus and been hit by a car. In order to get a stretcher in the aircraft we had to remove the left side front seat and leave one observer behind. It wouldn’t normally have been a problem but the casualty was a very large man; possibly weighing well over 300 lbs and it was a struggle to even get him on board. The landing site was on a narrow, elevated stretch of road above grass fields, with tall street lamps on either side (possibly 30’ high) and there was no option but to carry out an initial vertical climb to clear them. It took three attempts to get high enough to clear the street lamps and even then I was grateful that the road was elevated because I had to “swoop” the aircraft down to get any airspeed. Landing the aircraft at the hospital was just as much “fun”, but at least a bit of fuel had been burned off by the time we got there.

[Cornish Jack]

Hmm ... memories of a Sycamore 'up-country' Aden, landing in a wadi , a couple of thousand above sea level. M/P 'Tommy' Tomczak driving. Leaving the ground entailed a 'jump' take-off - max rrpm and quick collective and then 'sit' drifting inch by inch along the slightly descending wadi until there was just enough clearance to transition. A touch of the 'sixpence/half crowns' ! :ok:

[hargreaves99]

I've seen quite a few of these type of videos, usually from "abroad". It does beg the question why the pilots don't do some sort of basic power check in the hover before departing?

ie "do I have enough power/space to get out?"

[SLFMS]

Even if he had managed to fly away transiting low over the buildings with all of the debris on top was a death wish.
One of those tarps, buckets, chipboards going into the main or tail was going to ruin his day just as much.
The Brazil Helicopter industry needs a bit of work on its PR, just saying……..

[jellycopter]

I think the outcome may have been less problematic had he transitioned into wind. (assuming he could negotiate the wires).

[lelebebbel]

The A119 requires a fair bit of airspeed to achieve ETL. That did not look like it was nearly enough. I wonder what the ITT was...

Weather in Belo Horizonte has been around 30C daily max temp for the past week and it seems the relevant part of the city is 2,700-3,000ft. With 6POB and gear that machine would've definitely been at least close to MTOW, but if it wasn't overloaded then it should have been able to take off, although it would've definitely been temp limited. OGE hover according to the charts is just under MTOW at 3000ft and 30C.
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1080x1731/screenshot_20240109_104120_acrobat_for_samsung_9d45818de03fe 8bb58bae41c00c5e358f8945c02.jpg

I don't have a Kx chart, but as far as I know it's identical to the Mk2

[Cloudee]

Another view. https://www.itemfix.com/v?t=5r46jh

[DroneDog]

I thought the pilot did well getting down on a nearby road in one piece, that building site looked nasty.

[FiveBlades]

Dam what a shame, the Koala is the best single I've ever had the pleasure of flying and with a good engineer, not even a b3e can come close.I'm thinking she had the 5 cell tank and was close to max because even with 8 pax at that temp/altitude, power should not have been an issue, then again....