EMS AS350 Crash Tucson
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EMS AS350 Crash Tucson
Sadly another EMS helicopter crash. RIP
Medical helicopter crash kills three in Tucson, Arizona WireUpdate Local | Local Breaking News | Local Breaking Wire -
Medical helicopter crash kills three in Tucson, Arizona WireUpdate Local | Local Breaking News | Local Breaking Wire -
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Another EMS down in the US.
Jul 28, 2010 (The Arizona Daily Star - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
Three people were killed with a medical evacuation helicopter crashed on Tucson's north side Wednesday afternoon.
Killed in the crash were the pilot, flight nurse and paramedic, said Air Methods, the company that operated the LifeNet helicopter. There were no patients aboard the aircraft, the company said.
The helicopter crashed into a fence in front of a house on North Park Avenue just south of East Glenn Street and burst into flames.
Three people were on board the AS350 B3 Eurocopter, which was operated by Colorado-based air ambulance service LifeNet.
The helicopter's pilot was in contact with the control tower at Tucson International Airport at the time of the crash, but there was no indication of a problem, said Lynn Lunsford, an FAA spokesman.
The aircraft was traveling from Marana to Douglas at the time, but was not transporting a patient, Lunsford said. It crashed about 1:45 p.m.
Rotors stopped
Eyewitness Ricardo Carrasco said the helicopter's rotors stopped working and it started plummeting toward the ground.
He said the pilot managed to steer the chopper away from the house.
"If he (the pilot) hadn't turned around he'd have hit the house," said Carrasco, who ran toward the helicopter after it crashed but wasn't able to get close because of a "a wall of flames."
He and bystanders helped evacuate people in the neighborhood. There are no reports of injuries to residents or bystanders.
"One of the employees heard a loud boom, but he didn't know what it was and he went back to working on a car," said Tyler Edwards, 34, a service advisor at Stuttgart Autohaus, 614 E. Glenn St.
"Two people walked in who said they saw the craft go down. It appeared it had a malfunction and they saw it go down and then there was a lot of black smoke," said Edwards of the husband and wife who walked into the shop that repairs Volkswagens and Audis.
He said not long after the incident police squad cars, motorcycle officers, paramedics and fire engines began "flying down the street."
Officers began closing down the street at North First Avenue and East Glenn Street toward the east, Edwards said. Traffic began piling up in the area but motorists remained patient, he said.
House shook, flames intense
John Townsend, 74, who lives in the house where the helicopter crashed into the fence said he heard a loud noise shortly before 2 p.m. and then the house shook. He said he went into the back yard and saw smoke and flames.
Immediately after the crash Townsend said he didn't realize it was a helicopter. He said he grabbed a garden house to try to put out the flames, but the fire and smoke were too intense and he went back inside.
Townsend said a neighbor banged on his front door and told him to get out of the house.
The FAA is sending inspectors to the crash site. The agency will conduct the investigation along with the National Transportation Safety Board.
Three people were killed with a medical evacuation helicopter crashed on Tucson's north side Wednesday afternoon.
Killed in the crash were the pilot, flight nurse and paramedic, said Air Methods, the company that operated the LifeNet helicopter. There were no patients aboard the aircraft, the company said.
The helicopter crashed into a fence in front of a house on North Park Avenue just south of East Glenn Street and burst into flames.
Three people were on board the AS350 B3 Eurocopter, which was operated by Colorado-based air ambulance service LifeNet.
The helicopter's pilot was in contact with the control tower at Tucson International Airport at the time of the crash, but there was no indication of a problem, said Lynn Lunsford, an FAA spokesman.
The aircraft was traveling from Marana to Douglas at the time, but was not transporting a patient, Lunsford said. It crashed about 1:45 p.m.
Rotors stopped
Eyewitness Ricardo Carrasco said the helicopter's rotors stopped working and it started plummeting toward the ground.
He said the pilot managed to steer the chopper away from the house.
"If he (the pilot) hadn't turned around he'd have hit the house," said Carrasco, who ran toward the helicopter after it crashed but wasn't able to get close because of a "a wall of flames."
He and bystanders helped evacuate people in the neighborhood. There are no reports of injuries to residents or bystanders.
"One of the employees heard a loud boom, but he didn't know what it was and he went back to working on a car," said Tyler Edwards, 34, a service advisor at Stuttgart Autohaus, 614 E. Glenn St.
"Two people walked in who said they saw the craft go down. It appeared it had a malfunction and they saw it go down and then there was a lot of black smoke," said Edwards of the husband and wife who walked into the shop that repairs Volkswagens and Audis.
He said not long after the incident police squad cars, motorcycle officers, paramedics and fire engines began "flying down the street."
Officers began closing down the street at North First Avenue and East Glenn Street toward the east, Edwards said. Traffic began piling up in the area but motorists remained patient, he said.
House shook, flames intense
John Townsend, 74, who lives in the house where the helicopter crashed into the fence said he heard a loud noise shortly before 2 p.m. and then the house shook. He said he went into the back yard and saw smoke and flames.
Immediately after the crash Townsend said he didn't realize it was a helicopter. He said he grabbed a garden house to try to put out the flames, but the fire and smoke were too intense and he went back inside.
Townsend said a neighbor banged on his front door and told him to get out of the house.
The FAA is sending inspectors to the crash site. The agency will conduct the investigation along with the National Transportation Safety Board.
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Fairwell Friends.....
Victims of medical helicopter crash
Photos courtesy Air Methods The victims of Wednesday's crash of a LifeNet helicopter in Tucson. From left, flight nurse Parker W. Summons, 41; paramedic Brenda E. French, 28; pilot Alexander (Alex) B. Kelley, 61.
_________________________________________________
I wonder how many deaths could be prevented with more crashworthy fuel cells. Having flown for LifeNet myself, I'd like to see more done in this area. Rest in peace, my friends.
Last edited by fly911; 29th Jul 2010 at 19:43.
The joy of an eyewitness account.
I realize that Mister Carrasco was trying to be helpful in reporting what he saw, but ...
You can't steer the helicopter if the rotors have stopped working. 
The actual malfunction was .... ????
Did he mean that the engines quit? No idea. From the news report, bird in touch with tower, but apparently no time for a mayday (too busy handling whatever it was that went wrong ... aviate, navigate, communicate).
We shall see as the NTSB and others dig into the mishap.
RIP, to our three rotary wing borne friends,
and thanks for all the lives you did save by simply doing your jobs.
@ fly911: man, that picture speaks with a thousand words, all of them sad.
I realize that Mister Carrasco was trying to be helpful in reporting what he saw, but ...
Eyewitness Ricardo Carrasco said the helicopter's rotors stopped working and it started plummeting toward the ground.
He said the pilot managed to steer the chopper away from the house.
"If he (the pilot) hadn't turned around he'd have hit the house," said Carrasco, who ran toward the helicopter after it crashed but wasn't able to get close because of a "a wall of flames."
He said the pilot managed to steer the chopper away from the house.
"If he (the pilot) hadn't turned around he'd have hit the house," said Carrasco, who ran toward the helicopter after it crashed but wasn't able to get close because of a "a wall of flames."
The actual malfunction was .... ????
Did he mean that the engines quit? No idea. From the news report, bird in touch with tower, but apparently no time for a mayday (too busy handling whatever it was that went wrong ... aviate, navigate, communicate).
We shall see as the NTSB and others dig into the mishap.
RIP, to our three rotary wing borne friends,
and thanks for all the lives you did save by simply doing your jobs.@ fly911: man, that picture speaks with a thousand words, all of them sad.
If an eye witness, even someone with very little knowledge of helicopters, sees the rotors stopped....that is pretty compelling news to suggest a catastrophic failure of some kind. The investigation will be able to determine if the gearbox was in the aircraft at time of impact.
Sad news.....as this one begins to look as an engineering or component failure. Crew error while in cruise flight in the middle of the day in good weather pretty much rules out crew error.
Sad news.....as this one begins to look as an engineering or component failure. Crew error while in cruise flight in the middle of the day in good weather pretty much rules out crew error.
fly911_ out of curiosity, what happened to the picture of the crashed helicopter that was up initially? 
Do appreciate putting faces and names of the lost crew, however.
SASless: the point in detail that I was trying to make was, based on the eyewitness statement, you can't turn / maneuver the helicopter if the blades aren't turning. I am unsure of what he saw, based on his description, as he attributed turning to avoid the house to the crew before the aircraft impacted the ground.
His statement may not be presented to the reader in the order he gave it. It is, after all, an excerpt on the news and probably only a fraction of his entire description.
So, what did he really see?
From the statement provided, it is unclear.
Do appreciate putting faces and names of the lost crew, however. SASless: the point in detail that I was trying to make was, based on the eyewitness statement, you can't turn / maneuver the helicopter if the blades aren't turning. I am unsure of what he saw, based on his description, as he attributed turning to avoid the house to the crew before the aircraft impacted the ground.
His statement may not be presented to the reader in the order he gave it. It is, after all, an excerpt on the news and probably only a fraction of his entire description.
So, what did he really see?
From the statement provided, it is unclear.
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He seems to be on a 70 degree nose down attitude with the collective under his arm... I'll be eager to see the report to find out what happened there. Maybe eng failure at a low altitude and trying to gain some airspeed? who knows...
Maybe eng failure at a low altitude and trying to gain some airspeed? who knows...
He seems to be on a 70 degree nose down attitude with the collective under his arm... I'll be eager to see the report to find out what happened there.
Maybe eng failure at a low altitude and trying to gain some airspeed? who knows...
Maybe eng failure at a low altitude and trying to gain some airspeed? who knows...
My looking at the grainy photo I wasn't able to parse as well. Did you infer that (collective up?) by how you see the disk/coning in the pictures?
From what I recall of my training in a Jet Ranger, pushing nose down (all else unchanged) in an auto/power loss, tended to lower NR (transient), pulling up on the nose tended to increase it (transient) and the usual reaction to an engine failure is to lower collective to preserve NR ... so your post struck me as counter intuitive.
Can you explain your analysis to me?
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Just out of curiosity, by "collective under his arm" do you mean down, or up? I am guessing "collective up" as what you meant.
I meant as the collective was raised that c%#$p out of it.
... under his arm pit pretty much. At that point anyone of us would have done that. But again... just speculation looking at the pic.
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Lonewolf_50
Just didn't feel right. I usually defer to my gut in these matters.
fly911_ out of curiosity, what happened to the picture of the crashed helicopter that was up initially?
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May GOD rest their souls in peace.
Will we ever come to know what went wrong with the helicopter after the enquiry is over. Pilot appears to be highly experienced and other problem I can think of is Weather or Technical.
Will we ever come to know what went wrong with the helicopter after the enquiry is over. Pilot appears to be highly experienced and other problem I can think of is Weather or Technical.
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Ah wild speculation, jeeze i love it.
"He seems to be on a 70 degree nose down attitude with the collective under his arm... Maybe eng failure at a low altitude and trying to gain some airspeed? who knows... "
"...as this one begins to look as an engineering or component failure. Crew error while in cruise flight in the middle of the day in good weather pretty much rules out crew error."
All this analysis from a newspaper article and one photo! Crew error ruled out already!
Yet another EMS accident, too many good people lost already
RIP
"He seems to be on a 70 degree nose down attitude with the collective under his arm... Maybe eng failure at a low altitude and trying to gain some airspeed? who knows... "
"...as this one begins to look as an engineering or component failure. Crew error while in cruise flight in the middle of the day in good weather pretty much rules out crew error."
All this analysis from a newspaper article and one photo! Crew error ruled out already!
Yet another EMS accident, too many good people lost already
RIP
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Just an observation
This image may or may not suggest excessive coning. Low rotor RPM might account for lack of attitude control. We search for a cause not for mere speculation sake, but to avoide a reoccurrence and to learn from each others observation. If you feel the need to discount an observation, please feel free to do so.
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Good point TS. That NY ship had the belt installed inside-out and it failed as a result. I hope that they can rule that in or out, what with the fire. I've flown the AS350B2 and BA with hydraulics off but this was a B3. The earlier models were flyable but more challenging than say the Bell 206B for example.
Originally Posted by fly911
Just didn't feel right. I usually defer to my gut in these matters.
The more I think of it, the more I like your second choice, the friendly faces of the crew.
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