Mount Disappointment helicopter crash 31/3/2022
 

Emergency services began response at 9:30 to an "aviation incident" at Mount Disappointment.
3 emergency response helicopters and the SAR jet have responded.
10 ground units are fighting a bushfire. :(
C7 reporting there are 7 people on board, make and type not in the public domain

Edit: C7 reporting it is a helicopter. Due to low cloud locating the crash site is difficult. (Flight radar tracks of the rescue aircraft confirms)
Not necessarily accurate, the emergency services map has the incident icon located 100 meters north from a "H" icon at the summitt @780 meters.
edit: abc news report two helcopters were "in a convoy" enroute from Melbourne.
Perhaps related, Flight radar shows an EC30 leaving the yarra, flying to the East of Mt Disappointment then doing utrun and backtracking it's path performing what could be an aerial search and then proceeding across to Mangalore. The difference in northbound to southbound speed displayed on FR was 50 knots.

Mjb

Webtrack shows a helicopter closely followed by a Cessna 208 with the 208 last showing near Mt. Disappointment at 7.56am.

Edit 1:30pm Beware, no other source has reported the aircraft has been found!



Mjb

Could it be VH-XWD an EC-130 owned by the Deague Group (Property Developer and Builder)? Looks like it departed Moorabbin at 07:10 local, picked up at the Melbourne CBD then tracked towards the Mt Disappointment area where the tracking ended at 07:57.

It went to Lilydale not Mt Disappointment

The actual track doesn’t reflect that though.

It was XWD.

Thanks Squawk. Fingers crossed for a miracle.

XWD, and the 2nd tail was WVV which ended up landing at Mangalore

Correction to earlier reports, there were 5 persons onboard.
Staging point is Blair's Hut, bulldozers will be used to create a track to the site.
Crews being winched in at moment.
Live abc interview from scene at 17:00 hrs, reporter states police have not stated the fate of the occupants.
Herald Sun report the destination was Yarrawonga.


Mjb

Channel 10 News is reporting that wreckage has been found.

DF.

5POB. Sadly RIP. :(

It was a charter category operation.

Police locate helicopter crash site after search near Mt Disappointment

Article in The Age

The Yarrawonga destination is a curve ball because the news reporter said that there was a bus waiting at the CBD pad to drive the returning passengers to Geelong. Passengers that never came. That being said though, that was later in the day and it may have been when it was due to return.

A bit too soon to know anything really. So let’s just keep speculating. Someone can later claim ‘that’s what I said.’

I don’t believe anyone has speculated anything just yet !

Press is just reporting five POB, no survivors. Rest in peace.

Condolences to those involved.

The track of the other aircraft, which had its adsl registering with flight radar app, is heartbreaking.

I was hoping poor cell coverage in the area was an explanation for the lack of contact.

It is astonishing how a downed helicopter can be enveloped by a forest and my thoughts are with the emergency response aircrews trying to find the needle in the haystack in the adverse weather conditions.
Mjb

I heard that the aircraft may have been located by EFB tracking. Good to know that in the right conditions (eg phone coverage) that you can be found quickly by simply having been running an iPad. Assuming that you are able to survive the downing.

Very sad, Condolences to all involved.

RSCU660, the Rescue Challenger left Essendon and went straight to the site and then circled for several hours while various helicopters tried to make their way to the centre of the circle.
I was assuming that they went straight to an ELT signal. Either EFB or ELT would work, I guess.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....b701395dfc.png

GT has conducted an investigation. ATSB may as well go home.

Analysis of flight data identifies possible cause of fatal helicopter crash on Mt Disappointment in Victoria

https://images.thewest.com.au/assets...mpolicy=wan_v3
Geoffrey ThomasThe West Australian
Fri, 1 April 2022 7:06PMHow can it be that a top of the range helicopter operated by a well-run company with an excellent track record crashes with everybody on board dying?

That is the mystery confronting Australian Transport Safety Bureau investigators as they pick through the tangled wreckage of the five-year-old Airbus EC130 helicopter operated by Microflite.

The pilot, 32-year-old Dean Neal, was a former Westpac rescue helicopter pilot, giving him years of experience in tough conditions

According to Flightaware tracking data, the helicopter — part of a two-ship formation that departed from Melbourne on Thursday morning — was flying normally at a constant speed of about 322km/h at a stable altitude of around 240m.

But 14 minutes before the crash the speed became erratic, with 11 sharp changes and the altitude increased dramatically.

The speed went from a high of 339km/h to just 176km/h, while the altitude increased to 1050m, some 200m above the highest point on Mt Disappointment.
https://images.thewest.com.au/public...mpolicy=wan_v3 According to Flightaware tracking data, the helicopter, flown by Dean Neal, was flying normally at a constant speed of about 322km/h at a stable altitude of around 240m. Credit: Instagram/InstagramThe data seems to indicate a severe weather event, possibly wind shear, which is defined as a wind direction and/or speed change over a vertical or horizontal distance.

This has been fatal when it causes changes to the headwind or tailwind such that the aircraft or helicopter is abruptly displaced from its intended flight path and substantial control action is required to correct it.

The fact there was no distress call means little because in an emergency situation the first priority of the pilot is to stabilise the helicopter or aircraft, fly out of trouble and then advise air traffic control.
https://images.thewest.com.au/public...mpolicy=wan_v3 Australian Transport Safety Bureau investigators now face the job of picking through the tangled wreckage of the five-year-old Airbus EC130 helicopter operated by Microflite. Credit: 7NEWS/7NEWSWinds around mountains have been deadly many times with tumbling rotors forming as the wind climbs up the mountain and then rolls off the top, like a wave crashing at a beach.

Mountains act like rocks in a fast flowing stream, only in these instances it’s an air stream.

It may take months to learn what factors conspired to tragically end five lives on a Victorian mountain on Thursday.

Maybe Geoff should talk to the other pilot before making such bold assessments.

I've been prepared to cut GT some slack because he speaks to the punters in a language they can understand and he is after all a journalist, paid for comment. To have this pass an editor at the The West is embarrassing. In my opinion of course. In fact why call it journalism anymore at all? It's now just morphed into opinionism.

That is what the experts will figure out.

Yes - it would be hardly surprising if both were 'on the numbers'.

But as with so many incident, GT's already sorted this one. ATSB must be thankful.

It should be quite simple to either discard GT's scenario outright or to leave it in the category "perhaps that's what happened". All one needs is the last part of the flightpath, the exact location of the crash, the low level winds in the area and the vertical stability of the atmosphere in the area. All this information can be relatively easily sourced. Then with a good understanding of air flow around mountains and perhaps a numerical model simulation, one can find out if such a rotor-system could possibly have been present at the time. Knowing the flightpath of the second helicopter and talking to its pilot should also shed light on this question, although such rotor-phenomena can be rather small - as every glider pilot knows who has flown in the mountains. I'm sure ATSB will do all this.

First thing I did - look at weather ...Melbourne wind gusting to 25 SSE 7/8 08:00 Anybody want to guess what the wind was at Mt D since his speed was about 15kts higher than Vne.and maybe 40 kts higher than normal cruise

Ah hello, I simply read the historical data of the melbourne weather and correlated his speeds with the capability of the helicopter.

Colin wrote

I think the 322km/h (175knots) must be ground speed because that's what Flight Aware and Flight Radar normally shows.

Well the companion chopper on flight aware was grounding 133 kts heading north. Just before the ranges he doubles back southwards for a short period and grounds 73 knots before heading north again.

Whatever the wind direction / speed was it had a southerly vector of 30 kts.

Based off flight aware data of course. With its limitations.

Of course it doesn’t tell you what other weather conditions that may or may not have been a factor..

Who knew that ground speed could be different to air speed, as a consequence of the wind? Remarkable.

Buller was a steady 30 kts gusting 40 from SE around 8 am (from BOM data). From memory NAIPS was forecasting severe turb below 6000 over the ranges,

There were influential pax on board so it was obviously pilot error.

There is little talk of cloud. The cameras at the Kilmore gap will tell a significant story if they store historical images. The cloud at Romsey around 40kms to the west was as good as on the ground and that is at 1,000ft. Mt Disappointment elevation is 2,640ft. The windsock at Romsey appears to be showing a NW breeze.

No one has mentioned the dead trees that have been bleached white, a deadly combination.

I’d like to know why they “decided” to fly across the biggest hill in the worst weather? Asking for trouble.
Can’t a Helicopter slow to a crawl and heavens forbid hover and turn around if they can’t see forward to avoid the hard stuff?

Can you please elaborate, I’m not sure what you mean? Are they harder to see?

It’s an interesting point. May or may not have relevance. After Black Saturday (I think, but I’ve seen in other places in the vic alps post big fires) dead mountain ash remain, now white, poking.a hundred feet or more above the green living foliage.

IF they were scud running due stress of weather they may be hard to see in flat light.

News footage showed one that had been hit and sheared - presumably in the accident sequence, but of course no information into how - and I make no implication - the chopper came to hit it.