R22 bingle in Hawaii
Thread Starter
R22 bingle in Hawaii
Woman pilot Julia Link crash lands helicopter in Hawaii street
I know it's the Mail, but it reads as if she made a good job of an engine failure
I know it's the Mail, but it reads as if she made a good job of an engine failure
A female helicopter pilot has been hailed as a hero after crash landing from 3,000ft into a busy city centre without causing any serious injuries in Hawaii.
Julia Link, 30, was piloting the light aircraft with her passenger Karl Hedburg, 71, on a photography trip when the engine suddenly cut out above the capital Honolulu.
The helicopter plummeted to the street, landing close to a large apartment complex and Hawaii's Pacific University at around 3.30pm, but miraculously no one was seriously injured.
'Everything seemed normal with the aircraft,' Miss Link told KITV. 'All of a sudden it got real quiet. Engine quit.
'First, I thought it was a joke. I was like, "Oh my God! This is for real!" Three-thousand feet is a lot of time to think about things. We practice this all the time.'
Keeping a cool head, Miss Link even managed to radio the Hawaii Fire Department to warn them over her imminent crash as the helicopter was falling from the sky.
After skidding along Fort Street in central Honolulu, the helicopter eventually hit a parked car and ended up perched in the centre of the road.
Mr Hedburg was treated for minor head injuries, but apart from that no one was seriously injured.
'I prayed before we went up and I figured, the Lord will take us down,' said Mr Hedberg. 'We came in, we were skidding. I felt like we were at an amusement park.
'I'm actually kind of disappointed I ruined a brand new aircraft! The landing was nice, I have to say. I'm glad everybody walked away alive,' added Miss Link.
Firefighters said only the pilot's skills avoided a potentially fatal disaster.
'It's a pretty miraculous situation that no one was badly hurt by this,' said Captain Terry Seelig, a spokesman for the Honolulu Fire Department. 'This is a pretty busy area.'
The helicopter was operated by Mauna Loa Helicopters but representatives of the company could not immediately be reached for comment.
Preliminary information indicates the Robinson R22 Beta had an engine failure, said Allen Kenitzer, spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.
Julia Link, 30, was piloting the light aircraft with her passenger Karl Hedburg, 71, on a photography trip when the engine suddenly cut out above the capital Honolulu.
The helicopter plummeted to the street, landing close to a large apartment complex and Hawaii's Pacific University at around 3.30pm, but miraculously no one was seriously injured.
'Everything seemed normal with the aircraft,' Miss Link told KITV. 'All of a sudden it got real quiet. Engine quit.
'First, I thought it was a joke. I was like, "Oh my God! This is for real!" Three-thousand feet is a lot of time to think about things. We practice this all the time.'
Keeping a cool head, Miss Link even managed to radio the Hawaii Fire Department to warn them over her imminent crash as the helicopter was falling from the sky.
After skidding along Fort Street in central Honolulu, the helicopter eventually hit a parked car and ended up perched in the centre of the road.
Mr Hedburg was treated for minor head injuries, but apart from that no one was seriously injured.
'I prayed before we went up and I figured, the Lord will take us down,' said Mr Hedberg. 'We came in, we were skidding. I felt like we were at an amusement park.
'I'm actually kind of disappointed I ruined a brand new aircraft! The landing was nice, I have to say. I'm glad everybody walked away alive,' added Miss Link.
Firefighters said only the pilot's skills avoided a potentially fatal disaster.
'It's a pretty miraculous situation that no one was badly hurt by this,' said Captain Terry Seelig, a spokesman for the Honolulu Fire Department. 'This is a pretty busy area.'
The helicopter was operated by Mauna Loa Helicopters but representatives of the company could not immediately be reached for comment.
Preliminary information indicates the Robinson R22 Beta had an engine failure, said Allen Kenitzer, spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.
Join Date: Jun 1996
Location: Check with Ops
Posts: 741
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Nicely done Julia, especially with the paucity of suitable landing sites in that area. Unfortunately, it looks like I'll have to do my lessons in a different machine from now on 
Join Date: Apr 1998
Location: Mesopotamos
Posts: 5
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Praise the Lord that it did end well.
From the comfort of my armchair, I don't know Honolulu, but at 3000' I would imagine there would be a few better landing options than this road. It also must have been quite a hard landing to make the skids splay like that, anyone know the DA at the time, maybe that was the only spot to plant it at the last minute? Do they practice EOLs to the ground in 'merica (Hawaii), the way those rotors are drooping I think they are very lucky they didn't enter the cabin after such a hard landing.
Anyways, glad they walked away from it and the pilot is now better from the experience.
From the comfort of my armchair, I don't know Honolulu, but at 3000' I would imagine there would be a few better landing options than this road. It also must have been quite a hard landing to make the skids splay like that, anyone know the DA at the time, maybe that was the only spot to plant it at the last minute? Do they practice EOLs to the ground in 'merica (Hawaii), the way those rotors are drooping I think they are very lucky they didn't enter the cabin after such a hard landing.
Anyways, glad they walked away from it and the pilot is now better from the experience.
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Somewhere, Over the Rainbow
Posts: 200
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Doing an emergency landing in Honolulu/Waikiki isn't about picking the nicest spot, rather the spot with the least pedestrians. There isn't an inch of grass, beach, or parking lot space without people filling it. I always planned on stuffing it on a side street or in the surf if i had to auto over Honolulu when I flew there.
Great job to the pilot.
Mike
Great job to the pilot.
Mike
It also must have been quite a hard landing to make the skids splay like that [...] the way those rotors are drooping I think they are very lucky they didn't enter the cabin after such a hard landing.
3,000ft or not, that must have been quite a heart stopper. Congratulations to the pilot.
Last edited by lelebebbel; 9th May 2013 at 18:26.
'SALFEFC'
A Great job, well done............
hmmmmm & welcome to the Club 
(greeze on; was messed up by the paddy rock wall
6 x Earthlings walked away)
# 'Successful Autorotative Landing Following Engine Failure Club'
hmmmmm & welcome to the Club (greeze on; was messed up by the paddy rock wall
6 x Earthlings walked away) # 'Successful Autorotative Landing Following Engine Failure Club'
Last edited by Vertical Freedom; 10th May 2013 at 10:43.
