Two helicopters collide - Gold Coast, Queensland - Sea World 2/1/2023
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I can see a recommendation from CASA that will limit the number of passengers a single pilot can take on a joy ride. This appears to be pilot overload.
Say, a max of four passengers for each pilot. If there had been two pilots or a pilot and cabin crew this may not have happened.
Say, a max of four passengers for each pilot. If there had been two pilots or a pilot and cabin crew this may not have happened.
Further restrictions to helicopter operations like this are not the answer.
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On a tangential issue, does the case against cockpit video cameras still have much validity? The availability of the video in the cabin is going to assist the ATSB in their analysis of the event. Not having the video footage would create a lot more gaps in the evidence. The surviving pilot's narrative can be referenced to the video to give a more accurate timeline and support HF theories about cockpit distraction and the limitations of see and avoid.
Say, a max of four passengers for each pilot. If there had been two pilots or a pilot and cabin crew this may not have happened.
Maybe people who have no clue about the realities of the helicopter industry should just refrain from posting.
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I just can’t help but wonder if the lifting and landing calls from these two aircraft were made simultaneously, thus neither heard the others call. “Two at once” does happen occasionally and would explain the apparent lack of directional scanning.
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and what does having 2 or 3 times more traffic do to the threat of see and avoid?
ACAS I/II in this case is no better and IMHO not as good as an iPad with sentinel/Stratus or REDSPOT ADSB-IN, feeding to Foreflight particularly with a synthetic vision display.
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As a Part 133 air transport operation, they should have emergency floats if operating further from land than could be reached in autorotative flight, so in this case, maybe not (?)
this will be the best document air disaster ever.
I can see a recommendation from CASA that will limit the number of passengers a single pilot can take on a joy ride. This appears to be pilot overload.
Say, a max of four passengers for each pilot. If there had been two pilots or a pilot and cabin crew this may not have happened.
I can see a recommendation from CASA that will limit the number of passengers a single pilot can take on a joy ride. This appears to be pilot overload.
Say, a max of four passengers for each pilot. If there had been two pilots or a pilot and cabin crew this may not have happened.
If there where 4 less pax in the machine that made it down, EG no one in the back row, it’s difficult to imagine a different outcome.
While machines are designed, manufactured, maintained or flown by humans, mistakes will occur. Aviation has a long history of improving safety in response to tragic events.
Hopefully a procedure or other change, can be implemented that makes these types of operations even safer* than they are now.
* We had 11 people drown in the 4 days after Xmas day alone.
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Our ICAO 9859 SMS based regulatory structure, incorporating §100, §119 and other regulatory requirements have a cognitive dissonance with the real world. We end up managing by exception, which hardly helps and in this type of event, it is apparent that the term "system" "safety" and "management" are misplaced. IIRC, this is not the first event in recorded time that the number of aircraft involved in a bad day exceeded 1... so how is that going for us so far?
The world is messy, stochastic... yet SMS is a linear process, and is based on linear models of causation, that a number of us with interest in safety have discomfort with. It is not only aviation, it is reflected in all of our close coupled activities, the NPPs, transport, IT security, medical, defence etc... bandaids are not a best line of defence. Technology has potential to alter the risks in good and bad ways, but generally, the outcome tends towards goodness, our controls however act to deny ready access to better systems etc.
It is indeed fortunate that Wilbur and Orville did not have the regulatory bodies that exist today which seem to have an intent to be happier with a dismantlement of the infrastructure of aviation to ends that seem to be contrary to the employment needs for the regulator itself.
An iPad with a stratus 3 and Foreflight would have given a chance to avoid this event, at a grand total of about $2500, achieving a better outcome than the TCAS II ch 7.1 which of course was a 110 K USD update of faulty software that was certified to do a job, cost 150K to install and then we get billed for the "upgrade" to fix the defect that was inherent in the system. I have greater faith in my iPad than the TCAS II system, it also has a vastly better MTBF.
Assessment of the real world condition vs expectation is necessary to conduct THA, it is dynamic, but our setups tend to go unnoticed unless it is done. Normal operations do give insights into slips and potential threats but needs a mind set change, and a review of exactly how and why we have arrived with the system that we have, for frankly, I think the pony poop in the stable is not the desired outcome to avoid some of the bad days that occur.
The world is messy, stochastic... yet SMS is a linear process, and is based on linear models of causation, that a number of us with interest in safety have discomfort with. It is not only aviation, it is reflected in all of our close coupled activities, the NPPs, transport, IT security, medical, defence etc... bandaids are not a best line of defence. Technology has potential to alter the risks in good and bad ways, but generally, the outcome tends towards goodness, our controls however act to deny ready access to better systems etc.
It is indeed fortunate that Wilbur and Orville did not have the regulatory bodies that exist today which seem to have an intent to be happier with a dismantlement of the infrastructure of aviation to ends that seem to be contrary to the employment needs for the regulator itself.
An iPad with a stratus 3 and Foreflight would have given a chance to avoid this event, at a grand total of about $2500, achieving a better outcome than the TCAS II ch 7.1 which of course was a 110 K USD update of faulty software that was certified to do a job, cost 150K to install and then we get billed for the "upgrade" to fix the defect that was inherent in the system. I have greater faith in my iPad than the TCAS II system, it also has a vastly better MTBF.
Assessment of the real world condition vs expectation is necessary to conduct THA, it is dynamic, but our setups tend to go unnoticed unless it is done. Normal operations do give insights into slips and potential threats but needs a mind set change, and a review of exactly how and why we have arrived with the system that we have, for frankly, I think the pony poop in the stable is not the desired outcome to avoid some of the bad days that occur.
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Yes, "Procedures" would have - and should have - prevented this, but they didn't. We don't need more procedures to fix a problem existing procedures should have averted, we need to understand why the existing procedures didn't work. "Procedures" also say "Stop at a stop sign / give way to the right / wear a seatbelt / etc" but we still killed 1,100 people on the roads last year, and nobody blinks an eye.
Humans are humans so Occam's razor still applies. Sometimes, it's nothing more than "shit happens". In a perfect world, it wouldn't, but it ain't a perfect world.
What pisses me off more than the accident itself, is the ATSB refused to investigate the Gympie mid-air barely 6 weeks ago, yet they're out in force for this one. What is so different? Because "passengers" were involved?
Originally Posted by The ATSB
"The ATSB would only investigate accidents such the Kybong mid-air collision on an exception basis, as its resources permit, where conducting such an investigation has the potential to highlight wider safety issues."
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Condolences to all involved.
Just as a general question to those who've done these kind of ops (and I know we're all responsible to see and avoid) who is supposed to give way with several heli's all operating in close proximity - Landing? taking off? separated by radio calls? Im a fixed wing pilot and whenever I see these kind of ops I cant really make sense of the how the traffic flows.
Just as a general question to those who've done these kind of ops (and I know we're all responsible to see and avoid) who is supposed to give way with several heli's all operating in close proximity - Landing? taking off? separated by radio calls? Im a fixed wing pilot and whenever I see these kind of ops I cant really make sense of the how the traffic flows.
What pisses me off more than the accident itself, is the ATSB refused to investigate the Gympie mid-air barely 6 weeks ago, yet they're out in force for this one. What is so different? Because "passengers" were involved?
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When I was doing sightseeing tours it was always a loop pattern based on the winds at the time. If your departing to the North you should be arriving from the South and landing North. And ALWAYS announcing departing and on final so we knew where each of us where.
Very sad all around.
Very sad all around.
There's already an "isolate" switch on the intercom panel, and it works no matter if you have 4 or 12 in the back. Who knows, the pilot in the video may have even been using this feature, the passenger did tap him on the shoulder to get his attention after all. The investigation will show what happened, and we can wait at least wait until then before calling for regulation that would force all scenic flights to be limited to 4 pax (by the way, this would surely result in all surviving operations switching to R44s, which makes the net safety benefit even more questionable).
Again, we are professional pilots here, we need to assume that we are, in general, able to handle at least the absolute basics of what's in our job description. Managing attention and distraction in routine situations is pretty near the top of that list.
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Well there you have it, every angle of this cluster in glorious HD video, yet many here continue to look for excuses.
It all boils down to what i said initially. What amounts to a busy airline, working on a nod and a wink for ATC.
If a Pilot needs to be tapped on the shoulder by a passenger, the Pilot shouldt be flying.
I wonder, would a Pilot Observer have been of value? Is it worth the loss of $150 a flight to be safer?
I wonder what the dead think.
It all boils down to what i said initially. What amounts to a busy airline, working on a nod and a wink for ATC.
If a Pilot needs to be tapped on the shoulder by a passenger, the Pilot shouldt be flying.
I wonder, would a Pilot Observer have been of value? Is it worth the loss of $150 a flight to be safer?
I wonder what the dead think.
Semi or full duplex radio?
Reading in an earlier post that there is a procedure in place of calling departure and arrival and that they probably stepped on each other negating the procedure; 20 years ago I was greatly impressed that ZA paraglider pilots were using some sort of duplex system which allowed them to either hear whilst tx full speech or the interference tone.
Maybe it’s about time the aviation industry rethought the standards; Tenerife was a long time ago and technology has changed.
Reading in an earlier post that there is a procedure in place of calling departure and arrival and that they probably stepped on each other negating the procedure; 20 years ago I was greatly impressed that ZA paraglider pilots were using some sort of duplex system which allowed them to either hear whilst tx full speech or the interference tone.
Maybe it’s about time the aviation industry rethought the standards; Tenerife was a long time ago and technology has changed.
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The answer for that (above) here in Australia, is the term “two in together” but that takes another aircraft to speak up, IF they noticed and IF they can be bothered to say something.
I fly a modern two pilot ME IFR helicopter mainly.
Not infrequently, I’ll receive traffic information from ATC. They will inform me of the type (Often a red/white AW139, with it’s landing lights on), altitude, outbound track and it’s relative bearing and distance to me. EG “Company AW139 traffic, outbound on the 353 radial, just past 1500 on climb initially 3000. Should be in your 2 o’clock low at 8 miles. Report sighting”. This information is backed up on the TCAS display. With two of us looking, it can be difficult to impossible to spot the traffic. And trust me, this is with lots of head movement and diligent “scanning”.
Is a phrase that can only be trotted out by someone without sin. (Or perhaps without experience, especially on how much traffic that person might have unknowingly missed.)
Not infrequently, I’ll receive traffic information from ATC. They will inform me of the type (Often a red/white AW139, with it’s landing lights on), altitude, outbound track and it’s relative bearing and distance to me. EG “Company AW139 traffic, outbound on the 353 radial, just past 1500 on climb initially 3000. Should be in your 2 o’clock low at 8 miles. Report sighting”. This information is backed up on the TCAS display. With two of us looking, it can be difficult to impossible to spot the traffic. And trust me, this is with lots of head movement and diligent “scanning”.
”If a Pilot needs to be tapped on the shoulder by a passenger, the Pilot shouldt be flying.”
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