BBC report of Chinook 'unplanned landing', mentions wirestrike
 

BBC Wales news story

"A Chinook helicopter was forced to make an unplanned landing on Carmarthenshire farmland, Ministry of Defence officials have confirmed.The MoD said the incident happened on Tuesday evening near Llangynin, and the twin-engine aircraft crew suffered "minor injuries".

A suspect "wire strike" is thought to be responsible for the heavy-lifting helicopter coming down in the area.

Military chiefs said the Chinook was on a training exercise at the time.

The helicopter's crew have remained with the aircraft to maintain security until it can be recovered."

Chinook Power Line Strike Wales
 

I hope all are ok.
https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https...tn__=%2CmH-R&c[0]=AT2PZSeCmz_y3SwoEwUZJcWzdZTAjCw7KuEeM1RrGZp2sKlwasevgEZaK6w TI_ncGT4Qooe0axZzj10ViR-JKD_4WZS0PgrFuQabsbXaPK194f_iHZukc0oRZ7HEd_o1rjjjQgJi_7Zxb7Y rqJdqFTZROGTBvZKJthJeLZm0XLxPaGz7SSffCjM0wI364Wt2FdSE7CP00D8 73i15HQ

Report in the local rag Wales on line, report won't let you copy the link. All seem to be ok but the chinook had to at least stay last night.

Can't make that link work, KPax.

Here's another report, from Forces Net.
https://www.forces.net/news/chinook-...after-incident

The picture seems to show a landing without benefit of wheels, which might belie the RAF's "minor damage". The report also mentions "striking power lines". But no serious injuries, thankfully.

Oops

airsound

All wheels are present in the pic in your link...

The gear appears down to me! Your link describes a broken cockpit windscreen due to a wire strike.

The Chinook is fixed gear. The question would be whether they tore it off. I did not view the video, but it sounds like others see the gear still intact.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....f0d13636b.jpeg

The crew of that were very lucky they weren’t flying six feet lower!

Whilst working for the company that probably owns the wires they hit, we were given a look at a programme which was available to the military showing the location of all High Voltage (11kV and above) overhead wires. I take it that it isn't in widespread use...

Those three wire strikes look like mine so that would be an 11 KV medium voltage cable assembly, the type used to feed farms etc. Not marked on any map apart from the installer's. Almost impossible to see low level against a dark background.


They believed me so that must be right.

Are our helicopters not fitted with cable cutters then?
Apologies for a potentially stupid question from an aging spotter.....

Wouldn't that be a running landing:E

CG

Yes, an "interesting" one, with no rotors!

So, what now ?

Repair it in situ, truck it back to base or see who has an Mi-26 available for a lifting job ?

Yup, looks like an 11kv cable. Must have been flying v low.

Also intriguing to note the strike angle - were they banking or flying along a hill when they struck the cables?

​

A 2013 paper covering the MoD Helicopter Safety Enhancement Programme stated,

There is currently no wire cutter kit developed for the Chinook and there are no known plans to develop one. The cost and timescale associated with introducing this capability suggest that an alternative means of protecting the aircraft against wire strike may be a better option. Assessment of a tablet based moving map capability is underway, which would have details of known wires and obstacles overlaid. The key to this type of system is considered to be an effective means of alerting the aircrew to the presence of wires without them having to spend prolonged periods “eyes-in”.

I hope the ODH found suitable mitigation to cover the wire strike risk when he signed off on the ALARP safety statement.

DV

I seem to remember a wire detector developed for the Puma and trialled on the OCU that consisted of a ring of warning lights, they detected the current flowing through the wires, all went well flying towards wires on the tests and detecting them, however I seem to remember as they were leaving the grid cut the juice and yup you guessed right.

Funny routing to Devon ;)

Obviously a very strong crosswind :-)

Here you go a cheap detector

https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-n...light-detector

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/...fig1_303045042

Speeeed tape

At the angle those wires hit there would have to have been a rotor strike ?

I guess it depends on where you’re starting from?

Autoglass enroute - have your policy details ready!

On my Puma OCU in 1989, my flight commander was carrying out a concealed approach (nb 10’agl) and took out the electricity supply to St Davids in Wales. The RAF Valley press officer handled the story saying he didn’t understand why the aircraft was below 250 feet outside a Tactical Training Area and that a full investigation would take place 😳

Nutty, that wire detector was also fitted to a couple of Sqn aircraft, too and I flew them as part of the trial. Practical opinion? They didn’t work; many false negatives and false positives.

...around 50 per second.

Wasn't it something about a frequency the blades gave off?

Doh! One would have thought the boffins would have thought of this: "It would have worked fine if it hadn't been for those darned rotors!"

Only if you were flying circuits...... ;)

Call "Windscreen O'Brian" and some duct tape and voila, back in service...

I remember a night extraction from a field between XMG and Cullaville pre NVG. We had carried out a recce during day and flew to the torch T that the Troops had. Yes you guessed, Wrong Field! As we lifted and transited away, bright flash and all lights went out in Cullaville. On arrival back at BBK we still had 40 foot of cable wrapped around the port wheel. Neatly cut of at the tail rotor! As they used to say NI was a Bog held together by WIRES!

ISTR that a Chinook can lift another Chinook...

If the 'tablet based system' referred to is the same one as introduced to the SAR Force, it was a moving map but it couldn't be installed on the aircraft due to the need for lengthy and expensive trials and modifications.

So it was a 'carry on device' that was worn on a kneepad - because it was 'carry on' it couldn't be integrated with the aircraft intercom to provide audio warning of wires, just visual - so much for reduced 'heads-in' what a fecking waste of time and money.

The database was good showing many domestic wires of the sort they hit but a proper, aircraft integrated moving map with audio warnings is what is required.

I cannot believe they have managed to wriggle out of producing a WSPS wire strike prevention system (cutters) for the Chinook, how long has it been in service??????

The trial was 1979; tablets came in small brown bottles back then!

The one Nutty and I refer to was a panel installed instrument with a display that looked rather like the petals of a daisy, to show the relative direction.

ShyTorque

Very interesting. That wouldn't be the RSRE LIDAR kit - I know that was offered in 1986, and trialled in (I think) an Andover in about 1991. Perhaps an earlier iteration? Unfortunately, MoD stopped funding such R&D, and QinetiQ had their LIDAR funding slashed about 12 years ago. Most of the world's leading experts were made redundant, to the benefit of France and Germany. But MoD should still own the IPR.

Totally off thread but the picture reminds me of when I was sitting on a bench in Orchard Road having been thrown out of a bar with an R&R US Army Chinook pilot. The subject was the nostril intakes on the front pylon.

He told me, remember this is the 1970s so it was a Mk 1, that it was a pressure sensitive system to keep the aft rotor behind the front one. " The s##t hits the fan if you have a bird jam up one of them."

Is that what they were for? possibly overtaken by electronics.

​​​​​​I'm not directly familiar with either of those systems but I'd be impressed if they detect wires that size without much in the way of false alarms.... Note that the fluff article linked is describing super-grid pylons which do quite a lot more "erg-ing" than a set of domestics, even triple domestics. I'd be impressed if LIDAR could pick them out in the clutter as well, though I'd imagine with some heavy processing horsepower it's theoretically possible.

Crab, there are structural and location issues for fitting Cutters to the Chinook. The roof would need a lot of mods to be up to the task, and the chin is already taken up with the EO/IR. When I was in the PT we had a whole stack of reports that suggested the Chinook’s mass would snap most of the wires it hit, if the rotor system didn’t do the job first - and given the number we’ve hit over the years, especially in FRY, this has proven to be the case. This one is towards the top of the scale, and given the type of wires they’ve hit, the SI will be interesting to read. Re tablets, we are agreed - short term and cheap way of not doing something properly, and even the best mapping system can’t keep pace with wires/whip antennae going up at short notice.

PBA, there are LIDAR based obstacle detection systems out there available OTS, as well as radar ones. They all will create some false alerts, and cost money to buy and integrate, and can add weight to the nose. JHC prefers not to spend its money on them, instead emphasising crew planning and buying PEDs to ameliorate the risk ito ALARP - which I think is optimistic at best. We’ve also conducted a substantial number of TDPs and R&D in this area to overcome DVE issues - as usual, no money to properly exploit the knowledge gained.....

Evalu8ter - I take your point but even if the mass of the Chinook or the rotors snap the wires, what about the damage done to the airframe, rotors or crew? Seems a very optimistic attitude to say 'let them break wires'.