ETAP ditching AAIB report delayed

[FrustratedFormerFlie]

Announced in Commons reply to written question today that the AAIB report on Feb's Super Puma ditching (near ETAP platform, North Sea, no casualties to avoid confusion with later unrelated disaster) will be delayed until at least next summer(ie well beyond the usual 12 months) as the investigation was "complex in nature" and required "significant consultation" with the helicopter manufacturer (clipped from BBC site today). Is anyone else confused?

[Oilandgasman]

Yes me too, have written to the MP concerned and requested clarification as to which incident the Government are referring. I could well understand a delay in the AAIB reporting on the fatal incident, but another 6 months at least for the ETAP incident regarding CFIT(W) to discuss the matter with the Manufacturer seems a long time to me.
I will post any reply I receive from the MP such that the matter is clarified.

[212man]

Yeah, you're right. It was pilot error - just print the damn report and get on with it! What's to learn from the accident? Nothing - it was pilot error.

Maybe the AAIB take a different view on this. Maybe this was another G-BLUN that was narrowly avoided. Maybe we should detach ourselves from the 24 hours TV news culture, of instant gratification, and look forward to a detailed and indepth report that may help us all in the future


PS. I see from other threads, that facetiousness is often lost in the written word. For the sake of dispelling doubt, the first paragraph was facetious!

[Tuckunder]

212 Man, I do not agree that there is nothing to be learned from the ETAP accident. The 225 has so many "help the pilot stay out of the water" features which in this case were either not used or wrongly used. Not to mention very iffy SOPs with non flying pilot being requested to look out rather than in and some very questionable descent procedures in and out of cloud.

Whereas I think my own company operate to very safe SOPs it is always good for us to look objectively at our own fying/ procedures and ask the question could that ever have been me? A comprehensive report will provide us with definative truth as to what happened and hopefully by default make us all that little bit safer.

Tuck

[Camper Van Basten]

212 Man, I do not agree that there is nothing to be learned from the ETAP accident. The 225 has so many "help the pilot stay out of the water" features which in this case were either not used or wrongly used. Not to mention very iffy SOPs with non flying pilot being requested to look out rather than in and some very questionable descent procedures in and out of cloud.

Whereas I think my own company operate to very safe SOPs it is always good for us to look objectively at our own fying/ procedures and ask the question could that ever have been me? A comprehensive report will provide us with definative truth as to what happened and hopefully by default make us all that little bit safer.

Tuck Today 00:56

Jesus wept.

[Variable Load]

Oh dear!

Well Tuck, thanks for making me chuckle, although I know you didn't mean to.

212man finished his posting thus

For the sake of dispelling doubt, the first paragraph was facetious!

Just to help out, here is a web definition of facetious:
Treating serious issues with deliberately inappropriate humor



Thanks again for helping me smile after a long day at work

[212man]

PS. I see from other threads, that facetiousness is often lost in the written word. For the sake of dispelling doubt, the first paragraph was facetious!

Sorry, next time I'll write in bold and put flashing lights on it

[HeliComparator]

I am interested in what they will say about the EGPWS 100' audio warning that failed to sound. At a recent conference I attended, Eurocopter Safety Department said this was not a factor in the accident - perhaps they are right in that the 100' warning is too late to recover, but surely to have a warning system designed to stop you falling into the sea, but which didn't work when they were falling into the sea, is at least worthy of consideration as a factor?

I don't like the way that the EC225 EGPWS can be completely dead (eg circuit breaker popped) and yet there is no CWP warning, and if you have not selected the MISD display (and why would you?) you just get a small red "TAWS" on the FND which you may not notice if flying "visually" at night. Bring back AVAD, all is forgiven!

HC

[Hoppit]

Playing Devil's advocate, perhaps things aren't as easy as we might imagine.

Yes the actual ditching part may be straight forward, but there are probably lots of other things that aren't, such as the weather reporting at the destination, gotchas when dual rating on the L2 and 225 etc. There are probably lots of other contributary factors which could be holding up the publication.

Just a suggestion of course.........

[HeliComparator]

Hoppit, I don't think anyone is trivialising this report, as you say there will be a lot of interesting stuff if its well written (though some recent AAIB reports seem to be written by people who don't understand helicopters). I totally agree that dual rating L2 and 225 (esp during the same duty period, if that's true?) is not best practice. Unfortunately for the time being its quite legal.

I was dual rated on L and L2 for a while, didn't find that too much of a problem since they are quite different beasts. Then I was dual rated on L2 and 225 for a brief period, I found that much more of a problem, so similar and yet so different. The probability of pressing the right FADEC button under the collective in the event of an engine failure was minimal, and operating techniques to get the best out of the automation are completely different.

HC

[212man]

though some recent AAIB reports seem to be written by people who don't understand helicopters

Well, I know for a fact that the senior investigator is a very experienced helicopter pilot, and also a frequentor of these forums (since 1998, in fact!) I was fortunate enough to chat with him briefly very recently, although sadly not long enough to get into much detail on this topic.

I agree wholeheartedly about the dual rating issues, and was extremely disappointed that the operators pushed the regulator(s) to move away from separate type ratings - as JAR FCL-2 envisaged - and moved to single type with differences. If they were different types it would not be possible to fly as commander on both, in the same day (under OPS-3.)

Regarding the TAWS, I wonder if in the final stages of the descent the 100 ft call was inhibited by the normal rate of descent filtering designed to prevent nuisance warnings (crossing deck edge?) AVAD has this too - let's not open that old debate again......More to the point - why was there no TERRAIN warning ('soft' and 'hard')? My experience of the MK XXII is that it will give warning when attempting to fly into the sea.

I think this will be a good report, and will cover a whole range of issues both technical and Human Factors, as well as procedural. Questions about the use of automation will no doubt figure, and further impetus to improve the deck lighting will arise. The recent initiative by ECF to improve the flight envelope for the AFCS, for free, is very welcome, and hopefully will spur their competitor to do likewise!

[HeliComparator]

212 - well lets hope your man does a good report then. Did he also do the G-BLUN report (which IMHO missed a number of key factors and whose recommendations would do nothing much to prevent a recurrence but contained some red herrings)?

Having the 225 as a variant was a great help to us introducing the type since it cut down on the beurocratic side, but in terms of flying training and operating we have considered the 225 to be a different type (well "significanly different variant" anyway). So if the 225 L2 and L were made different types, it would not affect how we operate, what it would do is to make the beurocratic burden much higher. eg you carry out a type rating on an L pilot to EC225 (same hours etc as our current differences and operator conversion training) but instead of the TRE being able to sign your licence and start line training the next day, you can now wait 3 weeks without being able to work whilst PLD processes the paperwork, or else you can fly 500 miles to Gatwick, stay over night, wait in a long queue, then if you are lucky fly back on the 2nd day with your type rating.

Regarding the EGPWS filter for high descent rates, its the same as the AVAD in v26 - 5000'/min. That's 55mph straight down and I think if they had hit the water at that speed, it would have been a completely different outcome.

The myth that the EGPWS will give "Terrain" "Pull Up" or "Caution/Warning Terrain" to stop you falling into the sea is a bit like the myth that the S92 had 30 mins dry running time - a myth which was nevertheless believed by some pilots, possibly to their detriment and as such a dangerous myth.

I know we have been here before but there are clearly still some disbelievers so I will run through it again!

GPWS modes - Mode 1 (not active on 212's aircraft but active on the EC225) you need at least 950'/min approaching the surface to activate it.
Mode 2 - not active if the "E" part (ie the terrain database and gps position) is working
Mode 3 - takeoff phase only
Mode 4 - with gear down, only activates if IAS above about 80kts at the surface, rising to 120kts at 100'
Mode 5 - relevant to ILS only

Mode 6 - the general callouts including the "check height" and the "100". Both should have activated but I believe the suspend button was used prior to the "check height" and the "100" never sounded due to a technical fault. These are the only 2 that might have helped had they not been suspended /worked correctly.

Regarding the "E" part, ie the terrain database and gps position, as you go slower you get less look-ahead prediction until its zero below 70kts IAS, so for a profile that doesn't look too unlike a deliberate landing you don't get any warnings at all. This is why you don't get a "Caution/Warning Terrain" when you land normally, even if you land off airport ie in the jungles of Borneo!

But in this case its suspected that there were no warnings because the EGPWS box had failed.

HC

[212man]

So if the 225 L2 and L were made different types, it would not affect how we operate

Well, that's good, but is an operator driven decision that is not immune to commercial pressure - both internally and externally. Maybe other operators do not follow that philosophy. The point is that to all intents and purposes they are different types, and that has to be understood.

Regarding the "E" part, ie the terrain database and gps position, as you go slower you get less look-ahead prediction until its zero below 70kts IAS

Of course, you are correct - a brain fart on my part after a long day. The Terrain Floor activates at 70 KIAS and disappears on deceleration through that figure. However, it will be very prominent between those values, as I have seen - albeit not the case in this accident.

Mode 6 - the general callouts including the "check height" and the "100". Both should have activated but I believe the suspend button was used prior to the "check height" and the "100" never sounded due to a technical fault. These are the only 2 that might have helped had they not been suspended /worked correctly.

And this differs from AVAD in which regard?

But in this case its suspected that there were no warnings because the EGPWS box had failed.

Which would have been blindingly obvious if Terrain was a normal display on one(or more) of the displays!

[HeliComparator]

212 - your first point, no argument there! To be fair to the authorities, once it had been agreed that L and L2 were the same type rating (in 1992) it was pretty hard to say that L2 and 225 were not the same type. The difference between L and L2 is greater than the difference between L2 and 225. Therefore by association the L and 225 ended up as the same type.

Third point, not quite sure what you are saying but the whole point is that its very similar to AVAD. Its not quite as good because there are no attensons and its not repeated. Its also part of a very complicated box that is probably inherently less reliable than the very simple AVAD.

Fourth point, if an operator wanted to have the EGPWS display up all the time, there is nothing to stop them, however as a means to detect failure surely an effective CWP caption is a much better idea rather than tying up a whole screen? We don't like the EGPWS display offshore because as we all know it only contains some of the obstacle data, so is misleading whilst looking rather like radar. It doesn't tell you anything you don't already know apart from the fact that its working, but does fail to tell you things you do (hopefully) already know such as obstacles in front of you that you could hit.

HC

[marcr]

Why not adapt the take off mode to include an approach mode ?

At less than 70Kts IAS and descending, this mode could be enabled to give a SINK RATE / PULL UP warning in relation to rate of descent and RADALT height....... at values that are appropriate to helicopter operations!!

Arguably of more use than a 100' call and, with the technology now available, a practical and cost effective (?) safety enhancement.

[212man]

Why not adapt the take off mode to include an approach mode ?

Why not indeed? Sounds like a good topic for the H-TAWS working group to look at!

[HeliComparator]

marcr

Its certainly worth looking at, but to modify the EGPWS you have to have Honeywell on board, something we don't have at present. But I think the primary difficulty is how would the system diffentiate between a normal landing on a ship, semisub etc versus an unintentional landing on the water. In the case of the ETAP event, gear was down, "AVAD" suspended and all set for landing - they just landed a couple of hundred metres short! If the system gave a false warning every time you landed offshore, it would be ignored, switched off etc and add no value.

Theoretically you could for example have all the installations with their deck elevations in a database linked to the FMS/GPS so that it knew what your destination was (assuming you put it in the FMS/GPS as the destination, which I think we all do), then if you descended below deck height +50' more than (say) 50 metres away you would get a warning.

Difficulties:

1) Need to keep the database of semisubs, ships etc right up to date, tricky for moving ships and for FPSOs where the helideck swings around a large area in currents/wind.

2) This system doesn't exist, who is going to mandate or pay for it?

Perhaps more robust SOPs are a better solution? At the moment all 3 N Sea operators follow completely different SOPs and the CAA are powerless to standardise us - all they can do is check compliance with JAR-OPS 3, which of course we all are.

HC

[marcr]

HC

I accept that this adaptation wouldn't be straight forward but, given the circumstances, more than worth pursuing.

The main point really is to see this as an approach mode and not a landing one. If the primary alert trigger is an excessive rate of descent once deemed in the approach phase then databases of deck heights etc are not an issue. Onshore, the approaches are in part covered and protected by the ILS mode. Does the CAA/EASA mandate this for fixed wing?

I agree wholeheartedly that robust SOPs are an essential part of creating a safer environment in which to operate. However, having an SOP is one thing, always and strictly operating to it is another.....

Adapting the TAWS, using available technology, would provide a last line of defence when, for whatever reason, an aircrew find themselves near the surface and in difficulty. This I believe was the original intent of the 100' call.

It's a pity that Honeywell aren't on board. Perhaps they can be persuaded.

If I was flying a computer that had the capacity (?) to warn me that I was approaching the water very quickly, (and, crucially, at a point where the aircraft still had the capability to fly away), shouldn't I and my passengers be disappointed, (understatement), that an alarm is not generated ? (Though the event is perfectly recorded!)

The 100' call was perhaps appropriate to the technology at the time its usefulness became apparent. Modernise......

Marc

[FrustratedFormerFlie]

Having started this thread I guess I'm allowed to come back. First off, I'm not a journo: ex fixed wing pilot, now working in oil industry, non flying. My confusion was why extended consultation with the manufacturer would be required re an incident where an aircraft which, by all accounts was serviceable at the time, made an uncontrolled landing on water. I can understand any amount of discussion with crew, aircraft operator, or even (in light of informed debate here about same-family multi-typing which I was unaware of) the regulators. But why the manufacturer instead?

[Training Centre]

I see scope for another forum here (Moderator?) The question I would like all offshore pilots to consider is whether TAWS/EGPWS is fit for purpose in your environment - particularly at night or when weather is at minima.
There is a suggestion that there may be an issue between helicopter installations (i.e. it works well in some types and is cr@p in others).
Your thoughts please?
TC