Austrian cable car accident - Update

[griffothefog]

It looks like it was trees they were clearing. The pic clearly shows the greenage either side of the hole in the roof and it looks like the load took out the main chimney on the way in

Being the poor relations to Germany, the Austrians have another master plan for world domination.... Wot's that governor's name in California ??? Who's got Barack's 6 ????

[Runway101]

According to the Austrian TV company ORF, Knaus Helicopters admits mistakes on the recent accident. The steel wire was too thin for the load and the flight path chosen was wrong. The pilot has been grounded. The authorities launched an investigation...

Hubschrauberunfall: Tau offenbar zu dünn - oesterreich.ORF.at

N.B.: The reporters question if there would be more helicopter accidents at Knaus than at other companies was answered with "no" by Roy Knaus.

[GoodGrief]

It was pilot error of course and he got sacked right away...

[spencer17]

This bad and jealous competitors always have an eye on Knaus.
Every normal operator would be double careful. Why did they send that poor pilot out on a job with that equipment, or was he supposed to buy a new cable on the way?
It's so easy to sack the pilot.

[Fun Police]

agreed, that sling gear is a joke. servicable ops gear is just as important as a servicable aircraft, especially when working near population.

[tecpilot]

The naive dude took the cable from the customer and ignored rule Nr.1, "never never trust in the ground fumblers". I bet this lesson he will never forget. Pure luck he killed no one.

But interesting to know how Knaus trained his guys. As we all know, the cables have to be marked incl. CE mark and possible load and they should be able to read at least? Or do they use not certified cables? Cables are not too expensive and i would allways prefer my own.

[Cyclic Hotline]

And as we all know - never fly an external load over people or occupied buildings.

Hey, things go wrong, but there was no attempt to mitigate this.

[tecpilot]

He doesn't flew above the house, but bombs are flying on special rules. His route was according to witnesses 50-80m behind the house. But it doesn't really care the bomb to do a one of a million bullseye.

[wmy]

never fly an external load over people or occupied buildings.

Sometimes there's no choice... double important to check your gear and train your crew (pilot AND ground crew...)

[SASless]

There is no choice.....one does not over fly people or structures....ever!

If you do....things happen like people dying and homes being damaged or destroyed.

Ergo....this thread!!!

[sherpa]

”There is no choice.....one does not over fly people or structures....ever!

Most of us doing longline work of course are trying to avoid as much property/person as we can, but that’s a lot easier said than done.

In this particular scenario where he went back and forth to the same LZ he could have pick a different flight path, or extra distance away from property to compensate for centrifugal or aerodynamic force of the load.

Sometimes during Seismic/Drill every load is place at a different location and quite frequently structures are hiding in the trees. Once you come up on one of those (and I know it’s not good), there is little you can do besides flying dead smack center over the top or too close to it and hope for the best instead of making an evasive maneuver and additionally increasing the stress on the load and rigging.

In this particular incident and according to the pictures, they could have used a higher rated cable. Some of my shoelaces are more capable
Good thing nobody got hurt and as so often in this industry “a valuable lesson learnt and move on”