AW169 Rollover
But turning to the Puma, there must have been a reason behind the cockpit doors no longer being able to be used? Earlier accidents or incidents? Did it apply to all Pumas? Or only those of a particular operator?
Last edited by helispotter; 21st Jul 2023 at 03:19.
I recently came across the video of the accident discussed in this thread, so have looked over comments about it.
But turning to the Puma, there must have been a reason behind the cockpit doors no longer being able to be used? Earlier accidents or incidents? Did it apply to all Pumas? Or only those of a particular operator?
But turning to the Puma, there must have been a reason behind the cockpit doors no longer being able to be used? Earlier accidents or incidents? Did it apply to all Pumas? Or only those of a particular operator?
What I should have said was that of the 1,000 plus Pumas and Super Pumas produced the 23 operated by the RAF have their doors permanently locked. Over the last fifty years the rest seem to be perfectly happy with their pilots getting in and out of the doors designed for the purpose.
The cockpit doors, even on. a new EC225 LP tend to fit badly and are of such “Light” construction they are hard to close and lock as they tend to “flex” a bit.
They don’t get any better with age.
That has been my experience anyhow.
They don’t get any better with age.
That has been my experience anyhow.
For unknown reason, when I first scrolled through this thread, it only took me as far as #60. Now I see the rest.
So if that RAF accident related to loss of a rear sliding door, then why the ban on the cockpit doors which are unrelated? Furthermore, was there any redesign activity to prevent such an occurrence on rest of SA330 fleet? I read somewhere else on PPRuNE of another case of loss of a Puma sliding door in flight. That one landed safely.
So if that RAF accident related to loss of a rear sliding door, then why the ban on the cockpit doors which are unrelated? Furthermore, was there any redesign activity to prevent such an occurrence on rest of SA330 fleet? I read somewhere else on PPRuNE of another case of loss of a Puma sliding door in flight. That one landed safely.
For unknown reason, when I first scrolled through this thread, it only took me as far as #60. Now I see the rest.
So if that RAF accident related to loss of a rear sliding door, then why the ban on the cockpit doors which are unrelated? Furthermore, was there any redesign activity to prevent such an occurrence on rest of SA330 fleet? I read somewhere else on PPRuNE of another case of loss of a Puma sliding door in flight. That one landed safely.
So if that RAF accident related to loss of a rear sliding door, then why the ban on the cockpit doors which are unrelated? Furthermore, was there any redesign activity to prevent such an occurrence on rest of SA330 fleet? I read somewhere else on PPRuNE of another case of loss of a Puma sliding door in flight. That one landed safely.
212, you would be best placed to know but wasn't there a Puma (Bristow?) that lost a door in Borneo or there abouts with fatalities to all, early eighties an aging brain thinks?
Avoid imitations
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: Wandering the FIR and cyberspace often at highly unsociable times
Posts: 14,573
Received 422 Likes
on
222 Posts
As I mentioned earlier, it was very difficult to properly secure an RAF Puma for the night. The cockpit door keys were removed from the aircraft; although the cabin door keys were kept on the undercarriage switch pin. In my experience, problems sometimes occurred when aircraft were left parked in army barracks! Drunken squaddies do some very stupid things, such as climbing on top and jettisoning doors from the outside. I remember flying from base early one morning and passing two of our squadron Pumas returning from an overnight stop, going in the opposite direction with no cabin doors fitted! That certainly got the brain going, bearing in mind previous accidents caused by cabin doors coming off in flight. As soon as we landed we got on the phone to base to ask if we had missed some new edict about doors. In fact both aircraft had been parked up for the night and the crews returned to find the door jettison handles had been pulled! The aircraft were being flown back at low speed with the doors stowed internally.
The fact that you refer to a door coming off is intriguing because the only reference I have seen to that is in the Appendix to the formal report where Aerospatiale dispute the findings around the MGB failure and (lamely) attempt to blame it on a pilot's door coming of! Shades of the Norwegian EC225 aftermath and AH insinuating CHC had made errors.
With the Puma accident, the MGB had been making metal for weeks and the Chief Engineer had been diligently collecting the particles and sellotaping them to graph paper to monitor the quantity, in line with the maximum allowable from the AMM - 7 square millimetres. Unfortunately, he misinterpreted this as 7 millimetres squared. I think when the MGB failed it had about 29 square millimetres recorded and that was after it had already been flushed once and the count restarted! The UK AAIB did a substitution test using UK CAA engineering surveyors, and 50% of them made the same mistake! There was some waffle about confusing metric units, but I don't buy it as it's no different to square inches or inches squared, but it happened.
The flight was carrying Shell wives from Miri (Malaysia) to Bandar (Brunei) on a shopping trip, and the failure occurred just after crossing the border, so the aircraft fell into the swamp next to Kuala Belait. Accordingly, the Brunei Shell Aviation dept assisted in the recovery of wreckage etc, and they took a number of photos to show the scene before it was disturbed - I have seen them and they are not pleasant viewing!
The fact that you refer to a door coming off is intriguing
Probably early conjecture then - the idea of the MGB seizing and the rotor head coming off probably didn't enter anybody's minds then!
