EH101 emergency landing

[Sikorsky]

Local news "Viborg Folkeblad", near Karup Air Base (EKKA), reports that a danish Merlin EH101 Wednesday made an precautionary terrain landing. A military spokesman says that all danish EH101 are grounded, except lifesaving flights.

Sources within the military reports that all three engines stopped within few seconds and subsequent autorotation performed to an open field.

Karup-helikoptere sat ud af spillet - Viborg | viborg-folkeblad.dk

[whoknows idont]

Calling AR after triple engine failure a precautionary landing...?

[The SAR RC]

Is this a first in helicopter aviation? A triple engine failure.

[GipsyMagpie]

Are the British ones grounded too?

[Self loading bear]

Or a double pilot failure
Or a single fuel failure

[GipsyMagpie]

Originally Posted by Sikorsky

Sources within the military reports that all three engines stopped within few seconds and subsequent autorotation performed to an open field.

Karup-helikoptere sat ud af spillet - Viborg | viborg-folkeblad.dk

It doesn't say that anywhere! Where are you getting this from? It says clutch problem which is probably something like the main/accessory drive not being in the engaged state. Not a triple engine failure!

[Sikorsky]

That's one of the issues, that military gives one explanation to the press, but fact is probably different...

[Mustapha Cuppa]

but fact is probably different...

So tell us. What are the facts in this case?

[dangermouse]

remember this is a RUMOUR network!

so we are probably not getting anything like the full story. No doubt FH are on top of it, the appropriate specialists (none of whom are on this forum) will have the full picture

UK are still flying and I don't believe that any other EH101/AW101 are grounded so this suggests not a fleetwide/design problem

At some point all will be made clear I am sure

anyway congrats to the pilot for getting safely down

DM

[airsound]

Well.... the excellent Flt Lt Ben Wallis (for it was he, in charge) has finally, 31 months later, been handed his well-deserved Air Force Cross by a fellow helo pilot, the Duke of Cambridge, aka Prince William.
https://www.forces.net/services/raf/...c034-440992797

But, Flt Lt Ben's undoubted courage and expertise aside, what bothers me is how a three-engined helo can suddenly run out of power. To say nothing of the fact that it was at night, and over forest. Anyone care to say what actually went wrong - or, better still, point me towards the Service Inquiry?

airsound

[212man]

or, better still, point me towards the Service Inquiry?

Why would there be an SI into a foreign air force's incident? However, I agree it would be nice to know what happened!

[tottigol]

Danish Merlins were originally RAF owned, there perhaps is the reason why.

[Evalu8ter]

Totti,
Think it was the other way round. We bought 6 Merlins of the Danes in an attempt to respond to the "lack of helicopters" criticism in Afghanistan. We bought the Danes 6 replacement aircraft.

Airsound,
The Merlin is an underpowered / undertransmissioned beast - a circa 11000kg empty aircraft with a max TOW of just 15600kg. At high weights and low airspeed it can be poorly placed…..

None of which detracts from the fact that the lad done good….

[Misformonkey]

Broad spectrum but software problem or fuel to cause a triple ECU failure?

[airsound]

Evalu8ter - I get that

At high weights and low airspeed it can be poorly placed…..

but surely this event was much worse than that? Something like Misformonkey's "triple ECU failure"?

I imagine current Merliners must be familiar with the story behind this, happily uneventful, event.

airsound

[212man]

I believe it is as caused by freewheel units slipping leading to two engines shutting down through over speed and the third going to an idle power setting due to some FADEC logic.

[SASless]

Some logic... two enigines shutdown and the FADEC puts the last Engine to Idle!

That sounds just a bit odd.

[212man]

Originally Posted by SASless

Some logic... two enigines shutdown and the FADEC puts the last Engine to Idle!

That sounds just a bit odd.

I don’t disagree!

[Cows getting bigger]

How to make a twin turbine helicopter even more complex. Add a third engine.

[dClbydalpha]

Originally Posted by 212man

I believe it is as caused by freewheel units slipping leading to two engines shutting down through over speed and the third going to an idle power setting due to some FADEC logic.

In my opinion, the FADECs would be responsible for all the engines' behaviour. In this case one of the engines encountered different conditions and so the FADEC responded differently. It shouldn't be inferred that one FADEC behaved in that way due to the other engines.