South Maroota NSW crash
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South Maroota NSW crash
Last edited by Senior Pilot; 9th Jul 2022 at 07:30. Reason: Fix links
Quite a sad surprise on the news today, it was shown to be a LongRanger. The 7 News chopper was operating nearby and saw smoke coming up from a treeline, went over and discovered the wreckage freshly ablaze. They set down and went over with the camera crew in tow but nothing could be done.
Some nasty HT wires in that area
There's two clips I've seen, one shot airborne, one from the Channel 7 cameraman on the ground and at the wreckage - and I'm not overly fond of that clip, TBH knowing another pilot died only minutes earlier there...But I didn't see any evidence of powerlines, either HV or LV in either clip. Not to say there weren't powerlines there, just I didn't see any in either clip...
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Yes I was surprised they played that clip. Not really appropriate in my opinion. I found it hard to watch seeing AM walking around the crash and possibly knowing the pilot is somewhere amongst it. I however believe he landed to render assistance which any of us would do. I just don’t think that clip should have been broadcast.
There's two clips I've seen, one shot airborne, one from the Channel 7 cameraman on the ground and at the wreckage - and I'm not overly fond of that clip, TBH knowing another pilot died only minutes earlier there...But I didn't see any evidence of powerlines, either HV or LV in either clip. Not to say there weren't powerlines there, just I didn't see any in either clip...
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Odd that the rear LongRanger door has detached like that - the front part of the rear door is held on by pip pins, and the back part is pinned to the front bit, but the whole door section has departed in one piece. So the front pins and the rear latch have both let go.
If you search the Australian aircraft register, of the small number of helicopters with "NSW Helicopters Pty Ltd" as the Registered Operator, VH-ZMF is the only Bell 206L-1 and AustAirData shows it in scheme as seen in image of door posted by KRviator. A Polish aviation magazine website is indicating the crashed helicopter is VH-ZMF but not sure if they managed to get the information first hand from somewhere, or also by the above process. I replayed aircraft movements in the area via FlightRadar24 and the NSW Police Bell 412 made repeated passes and orbits over the scene, perhaps to gather information to support ATSB accident investigation??