Early reports that MHS might have lost their second helicopter in three months, disappeared off radar screens in same location as last incident?
Thoughts are with all crew / personnel concerned and let's hope it turns out to be a false alarm.

Any update to this ?

One missing, 9 rescued in Malaysia chopper crash

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SP59011.htm

That's their 2nd L2 isn't it ? And did they not have an L a while back with a tail rotor pitch bearing problem ?

Helicopter crashes off Bintulu, survivors found

KUALA LUMPUR: Seven Petronas Carigali oilrig workers and two pilots miraculously survived a helicopter crash after a helicopter ferrying them crashed into the sea some 80km off Bintulu Tuesday.
Search and rescue operations are underway for one other missing oilrig worker, whose name has not been disclosed.
In a statement, Petronas said the Super Puma L2 helicopter belonging to Malaysian Helicopter Services (MHS) crashed at about 2.30pm pm, shortly after leaving an offshore platform for another rig.
The helicopter was to have arrived at its destination at about 2.40pm but the Miri control tower, lost contact with it midway.
Petronas will release more information as soon as it is available.

Yes, it is the 2nd L2 within 3 months for that company.

But not the same location. Earlier was in State of Terengganu ( East Coast of West Malaysia - Peninsular)

The latest was in State of Sarawak ( East Malaysia - Borneo )

A Vietnamese registered AS 332L2, a Malaysian Captain and a Vietnamese First Officer, in Malaysian Airspace. What are the chances of getting meaningful feedback by way of a published accident report?

The aircraft was on contract to Shell. You'll get all the reports you need, and then a few more, don't worry.

So the company with probably the most to lose is going to tell everyone what really happened.

Now that fills me with hope!

Mr Agenda. Why so cynical? Have you delt with either oil company or the operator. Mhs is a very professional outfit and the staff at Miri are excellent, ops and engineering.

Ahh...maybe those flying quiche-loraines are not as good as they are supposed to be. Would be interesting to know the cause of two accidents within three months.

Apparantly a massive loss of Hydraulics from the L/H system.

Apparantly a massive loss of Hydraulics from the L/H system.

You got to be kidding me. There is no helicopter certified in the world with dual hydraulics that cannot safely fly for the rest of the day on the remaining system. More likely a decision to ditch because of a pilot perception of risk, like the Bristow Puma in den Helder.

charron

It's amazing how quick you guys are to pull others apart when you don't have all, or sometimes any of the facts.
You would be more correct to say that a loss of hydraulics should not cause a major problem. But where did the hydraulic fluid go to and did this give rise to something else ............. fire maybe? Not sure I would try to see how long I could last in the air with that happening!!
Your assumptions on the Den Helder situation are much the same - assumptions. Unless of course you know something the rest of us dont.

A hydraulic fed fire?

I know a wee bit about that situation and have the scars to prove it.

Whether you could fly for long with a fire depends upon the place in the aircraft where the fire is located, whether it is a return line or pressure line that lets go, and what kind of terrain you are flying over and whether you are VMC or IMC.

A simple leak or return line breech makes for a nice polite fire...one that could possibly be dealt with by means of a hand held extinguisher depending upon the location and access by the crew.

When a pressure line lets go and feeds the fire....that is an altogether different event. My fire was in the chin bubble area where the aircraft utility system supplied the brake system. That was a 1500 PSI system with a return pressure of about 125 PSI. I assume the return line was severed first and generated a pretty good fire but a very short while later the pressure line must have gone because that fire filled the left side of the cockpit where I was sitting. Some of the flames were pulled out of the chin bubble area and carried down the left side of the aircraft and actually melted the skin of the aircraft up to 30 feet back.

If the failure would have involved the flight control system operating at a 3000 PSI pressure, the fire would have been horrendous.

We stayed in the air....landing was impossible due to the weather and sheer lack of a clearing to use. We finally got the fire out, probably because the utility system had exhausted its contents.

Trust me when I say.....you do not ever want to have that kind of experience but if you do....land as quickly as you can.

I can assure you a flight control system failure on a 2500-3500 PSI system would cause a catastrophic fire.

Having scoured the web for further news, I came across one which could indicate a fire of some sort. However, we all know that initial "eye witness" reports can be somewhat different from reality.

News article from Malaysian National News Agency

Not a good few months for the industry.

MHS AS332L2: The cew experienced control problems and smoke in the cockpit and decided to ditch, probably wisely.

BRISTOW AS332L2: The Bristow G JSAR also reported control problems prior to ditching.

Previous MHS accident unlikely to be mechanically related.

2 out of 3 332L2 accidents probably mechanically related.

Apparantly a massive loss of Hydraulics from the L/H system.

You got to be kidding me.

Well not according to the Eurocopter Alert Telex !

Would you care to enlighten us as to the contents of said Alert Telex etc?

Are the two flight control systems completely independent of one another or is there some reason a complete fluid leak or loss of pressure on one system is able to cause problems on the remaining system?

Is there any place in the two systems where fluid could be passed to the other by a malfunction such as a leaking seal?

One would like to think they were truely separate and equal systems.

The early Chinooks had one place where a leaking seal could allow systems to transfer fluid but that very rarely happened and it did not cause either system to fail. The major symptom was one system showed overfull and the other always needed topping off.