Squirrel helicopter crash in Bergen, Norway May 2017

[ETOPS]

Here's a pic of a Robinson on board

[Fareastdriver]

I wish I had the money where I could rent a chopper to fly me for thirteen hours, and pay for it to fly back again, instead of getting a taxi to Heathrow, first class to Bergan and then a taxi to the docks.

[ROTOR BLAST]

Didn't buy the dual hydraulic option for ship ops either eh😳

[Heliflyger]

Video of the crash from nrk.no
https://youtu.be/5QWY2tAyi-0

[joaasl]

Originally Posted by TowerDog

Rumors says a lose tarp or a blanket got sucked into the rotor.
Guess that would do it.

[TowerDog]

Here is a video of the crash, released by the police to a newspaper:

Politiet: Et løst trekk som traff rotoren var trolig årsak til helikopterstyrt - Aftenposten

[G-SASY]

Bergen Crash

Could have happened to anyone...

Witness said: "It looked idyllic, absolutely by the book.

"As the helicopter came to land, I saw something that looked like a tarpaulin fly up from the deck and into the rotor blades.

"It went into a thousand pieces and everything was chaos. The pilot took off from the boat. The helicopter began to spin and landed on his back in the sea.

"It was over in five or six seconds.”

A loose fuel tank cover on the boat caused the crash, Norwegian investigators revealed today.

The metal sheet on the tank on the top deck of the £50 million Bacarella was sucked-up into the Ecuriel chopper’s rotors as it touched-down.

The pilot from HQ Aviation in Uxbridge, west London, tried to quickly take off again but his brand new £1.2 million aircraft plunged into the sea off Bergen on Wednesday evening.

The chopper, operated by a charter company in Uxbridge, West London, had set off from the Orkney Isles for the 200ft three-tier yacht which is on a world cruise.

Witness Jan Solberg, 33, saw the tarpaulin fly into the rotors.

[Cazalet33]

The bo'sn, the OOW and the Master have got some pretty serious questions to answer, it would seem.

Commiserations to the PIC of that Squirrel. Bugger all he could have done to prevent the accident.

[helisniper]

Deck Ops

Originally Posted by Cazalet33

Bugger all he could have done to prevent the accident.

B****r all? Well, he could have satisfied himself the Yacht crew were competent for Helideck Ops and that there was a robust system of responsibilities, training, qualifications, etc in place. A competent operator of such ops would be all over that sort of thing.

[Nubian]

From the AIBN

https://www.aibn.no/Aviation/Investigations/17-378

''The cover was custom made for hiding a fuel depot newly installed on the helideck.''

[Cazalet33]

Helisniper,


How, pray tell, do you believe that a pilot in England, or on a tech stop at Sumburgh, could possibly have checked that the tarp (or whatever the FOD was) was secure.

We are not supermen, y'know.

Demanding 6Sigma QA stuff is for bureaucrats and office girls. Not for pilots.

One can reasonably expect that the Bo'sn and the bridge officers are seamanlike enough to take reasonable precautions before declaring "deck is clear".

My sympathies are primarily for the PIC. Very much secondarily for the Bo'sn and bridge officers who must be feeling like !!!! right now.

[Schweizer300pilot]

The pilot was Quentin Smith. Many of you know him as "Captain Q".. Hope they're all safe and sound.. Very unfotunate situation to be in, and nothing a pilot could possibly do to recover..

[wallism]

Dammit. All the best to you and those on board Q.

[nigelh]

Heli sniper ..... Don't be a prat .
Hope you are OK Q . What a bugger .
Nigel

[FLY 7]

And, of course, you don't need to be landing on a ship to encounter loose items - building sites, farms, gardens.......plenty of unsecured hazards.

[helisniper]

The point is that the ac commander has a responsibility to manage the risks of any landing site. As complex as yacht-heli ops are, a yacht deck environment is eminently controllable - as are the O&G industry's decks - it's a matter of having a proper safety-focused approach to doing it and no-one should land on a deck unless they know there is a system to prevent any possibility of a FOD occurrence like this.

This was a tragic occurrence but no-one should convince themselves that it was unavoidable. Learn from it and move on.

[pedroalpha]

Many of us have had similar incidents; mine was a very large plastic sack that blew into the rotor system of my Scout during landing at an operational site. Fortunately, the Scout blades are very tough and, apart from the loud bang, there was no damage.
Q, I am so glad that you escaped with minor injuries only and my best wishes for a speedy recovery for you and your passengers.
Pedro

[Fareastdriver]

The point is that the ac commander has a responsibility to manage the risks of any landing site

We know helicopters have landed on this yacht before . The helideck would have been certified up to a certain weight by the builders and registration authority. Part of the Ships Orders would be the instructions to make the deck safe for operations.

The pilot would, as I have done on innumerable operations all over the world on everything from 1,000 to 350,000 gross tonnage, land on the deck knowing that it is fit for purpose with absolute confidence.

There is nothing the operator can do beforehand and in this case there was nothing the pilot could do when it happened.

[FLY 7]

Liability will presumably be the subject of some interesting conversations between the a/c's insurers and the ship's insurers - and we'll probably never know.
Was the ship damaged?

[nigelh]

So Heli Sniper . I guess you would have travelled out to the boat and inspected the deck yourself ? I think you will find that the crew will have been well versed in checking the deck was clear . In your wisdom what else can you do other than to personally visit it yourself to check ..... Before every landing . I think you are talking nonsense!
Except the bit about learning from this of course ...