S76 down in Baltic Sea (Now incl NTSB Safety Recommendation)
 

Not a lot more than that, but being reported on UK TV.

Edited to add - 14 reported on board.

Helicopter down in the baltic
 

Sky News are reporting that a helicopter with 12 persons on board has crashed into the Baltic Sea. More news to follow.

Sky News

Helicopter crashes in Baltic Sea

A helicopter with 14 people on board has crashed into the Baltic Sea off the Estonian coast.

Rescue services said the crash was about five kilometres (three miles) from shore, near the capital Tallinn.

Two pilots and 12 passengers were on board the Sikorsky 76 helicopter flying from Tallinn to Helsinki, according to the Estonian rescue service.

There are no details of casualties or why it crashed. The area has been stormy. A rescue mission is under way.

2 US passengers, 4 Estonian passengers and rest Finns onboard, the crashed near the island of Narissar (Nargö in Swedish) and
Estonian coast guard has lifted the helo with inflatable rafts.
No word about the outcome for the people onboard....

Chopper with 14 passengers crashes

From correspondents in Tallinn
August 10, 2005

A HELICOPTER with 12 passengers and two crew on board has crashed into the Baltic Sea off the coast of the Estonian capital, Tallinn.

"The tail of the helicopter can be seen sticking out of the water, t there is no sight of any people," a pokeswoman for the Estonia border guard, which is in charge of the rescue operation, said.

"The water at the site of the crash is 60 metres deep.

The helicopter, a Sikorsky S-76 C+, was operated by the Copterline company, and was flying a regular route between Tallinn and the Finnish capital, Helsinki, 80km away.

"The helicopter left Tallinn for Helsinki at 12:40pm (19:40 AEST) and crashed into the sea 5km from Tallinn," a rescue services spokesman said.

Rescue officials were alerted to the crash at 12:45pm, the spokesman said.

The spokesman was unable to give information about the fate of the people on board the helicopter.

Finnish company Copterline has been running the Tallinn-Helsinki service since 2000.

The company has a clean safety record.

See the Rotorheads forum for more info


NST

Hello,

some more details that you might want to know.

First of all it is more or less comfirmed that all people in the chopper are dead and still trapped inside. Secondly, it was premature information that the chopper is lifted from the bottom of the sea, it´s not.

The pilots were Finns. A 41 years old ex frontier guard pilot (I believe that he was the captain) and a 57 years old pilot who have flown for Copterline 10 years.

Even though there are reports of storm, wheather was not a factor (most likely). It seems that there were no thunderstorms at the area, visibility was good and cloud base was not very low. The accident site is located in an area of low pressure but a satellite photo some 15 minutes after the accident shows no significant weather. It should have been a normal flight but during the cruise phase something went wrong.

Even though the company has a clean safety record it has had it´s shere of problems with the FAA. About a year ago their operating lisence was limited for only good weather operations for three months. Thats because their pilot had too much trouble at check rides. Also some under minima flying was discovered and some other things.

This is a bad day in Finnish aviation. :(

More details here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4138170.stm

and here:

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/inte...r=MOREOVERNEWS


Jim

Can't add much to this except that wind was 10-15 meters per second. I'm used to mph or kp/h so I can't translate the above, but weather has been discounted as a problem.

Yes, all 14 aboard apparently perished because the copter plunged into the Gulf of Finland and did not feather into the water. The crash happened 3-5 minutes after takeoff.

As has been pointed out in above posts, the company has enjoyed a good safety record during the 10 years it has been in operation. We're also talking about two experienced Finnish pilots and not some ex-Soviet cowboys, whose last command was a Hind.

To PPrune admin,

I believe the that the Tallin, Estonia, chopper crash in which 14 (all) people died in today should be moved back to Rumours & News. The cax count is too high to be devoted only to Rotorheads. This is a general interest story.

Tallin:

EETN 101520Z 12013KT 9999 -RA SCT008 OVC012 15/13 Q0991 NOSIG=
EETN 101450Z 13014KT 9000 -RA OVC012 15/13 Q0991 NOSIG=
EETN 101420Z 12013G23KT 9999 -RA OVC014 15/13 Q0991 NOSIG=
EETN 101350Z 13014G24KT 9999 -RA OVC014 15/12 Q0991 NOSIG=
EETN 101320Z 12013G23KT 9999 BKN014 OVC018 15/12 Q0990 NOSIG=
EETN 101250Z 13014KT 9999 FEW010 OVC014 15/12 Q0991 NOSIG=
EETN 101220Z 12013G23KT 9999 BKN011 OVC016 15/12 Q0990 NOSIG=
EETN 101150Z 12014G25KT 9999 BKN009 OVC014 15/13 Q0990 NOSIG=
EETN 101120Z 12014G26KT 9999 OVC009 14/13 Q0990 NOSIG=
EETN 101050Z 12013KT 9000 -RA OVC008 14/13 Q0990 NOSIG=
EETN 101020Z 12013KT 9999 -RA BKN008 OVC014 14/13 Q0989 RERA
NOSIG=
EETN 100950Z 11014KT 9000 -RA BKN008 OVC014 14/13 Q0989 NOSIG=
EETN 100920Z 11014KT 6000 RADZ OVC008 14/12 Q0989 TEMPO 3000=
EETN 100850Z 11013KT 8000 -RA BKN006 OVC014 14/12 Q0989 RERA
NOSIG=

Helsinki:

EFHF 101450Z 10016G27KT 070V140 9999 BKN011 BKN016 15/13 Q0993=
EFHF 101420Z 10017G28KT 070V140 9999 SCT011 BKN015 BKN019 15/13
Q0993=
EFHF 101350Z 11015G26KT 070V140 9999 BKN012 BKN026 15/13 Q0993=
EFHF 101320Z 11016G27KT 070V140 9999 BKN012 BKN025 15/13 Q0993=
EFHF 101250Z 10015KT 070V150 9999 SCT011 BKN015 BKN025 15/13 Q0993=
EFHF 101220Z 11014KT 070V150 9999 BKN012 BKN017 15/13 Q0993=
EFHF 101150Z 11015G28KT 070V140 9999 BKN012 BKN016 15/13 Q0993=
EFHF 101120Z 11013KT 060V150 9999 BKN012 BKN017 15/13 Q0992=
EFHF 101050Z 09014KT 060V130 6000 -RA FEW008 BKN010 BKN018 14/13
Q0992=
EFHF 101020Z 10016G26KT 060V130 9999 -RA BKN013 BKN019 14/13 Q0992=
EFHF 100950Z 10015G27KT 040V140 9999 -RA BKN017 15/12 Q0992=
EFHF 100920Z 09015G27KT 050V140 9999 -SHRA BKN017 15/12 Q0992=
EFHF 100850Z 09017G31KT 060V140 9999 -SHRA SCT018 BKN021 15/12 Q0992=

Norwegian media states, that the company involved was not auth. to fly in "bad weather" by the finnish regulator due to lack of crew training. The company have since taken measures to fix this, and they stress that the crew of the accident helo was very experienced


www.dagbladet.no

(Whatever that means in hard facts, no operations in IMC?)

14 dead
 

Helicopter in question was a Sikorsky S76C registration OH-HCI.

Crew of two was from Finland with 6 Finns, 4 Estonians and 2 Americans as PAX.

Copterline operates 30 flights a day between Tallinn and Helsinki during weekdays and 9 flights during weekends.

Helsinki-Tallinn Crash
 

Anyone got any info on this. As far as i know they fly S76's, not sure which model. There was a little bit on the news last night, and a small article in today's paper, but not much in the way of details.

just keep scrolling............
 

down the page, there's a thread referring to a crash in the Baltic.

They fly the S76C+ and they only have two of them.

Baltic S76 down!
 

Not a good day!

Condolences to those affected.

DK

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4140988.stm

Sikorsky S-76C+, OH-HCI, (c/n 760508)

All trapped inside the wreckage.
Divers today recovered the first of 14 bodies.

Estonia's police commander Robert Antropov said divers were not able to open the doors of the helicopter and had to lift the bodies through the shattered front windows.

Last year, Finnish aviation authorities temporarily banned the company from flying helicopters in bad weather due to inexperience of pilots. The restriction was lifted after the company made policy changes.

From Copterline website:
Very sad news... :(
Condolences to the families.

Aser

...and no doubt with a lifetime of stories to tell, and perhaps looking forward to recounting them through many happy years of retirement.

So very, very sad.

Can we wait for the Accident Report before we start guessing and making up things we might have heard or read.

After all the Pilot's are dead and they can not defend themsevles.

Manners please.:(

Thank you Brilliant Stuff. In the country of a VERY small helicopter business almost everybody know each other personally and speculation without facts just makes things worse. We are all still shocked.:(

Just a question:
How are fitted the floats on a S76? I can't see them in these picture.
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/898477/L/
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/898362/L/

Thanks

The S76 has four floats. One each side of the nose wheel (fitted internally) and one on the underside of each of the rear undercarriage doors. They are inflated via individual inflation bottles that cross inflate. ie each front bottle inflates half of each front float. Likewise for the rear.

I hope this answers the question adequately.

A sad day!

Deepest Condolences to all those involved and to the friends and families .

Very harrowing for the poor rescue teams too

TnT :(

Thanks slowlane.

@Brilliant Stuff

Sorry at the moment i couldn't read any speculations about the accident reason. And up to time nobody wants to blame the pilots!!!???

I you are pissed about the words to copterline tell us your opinion.

I think it's in the same way interesting to hear facts about the operators as to the a/c in case of any accident or incident.

Someone ... (made some allegations against the company.) But looking over the thread it has vanished now.
Must mean the moderators were at it.
So all is well again.




I haven't deleted any posts but, since the allegation you mention has now been removed, it's better not to repeat what someone wrote and then removed.

Heliport

tecpilot

If you're not raising the possibility of pilot error, why did you mention some incident last year which concerned inexperienced pilots?


Heliport

What was earlier reported and now disappeared about sharp pencilling the logbook etc. seems to be true. The president and biggest shareholder of Copterline has been banned from flying by the FAA for 9 months. He took the case to court and lost the first round. At the moment the case is still open so he can keep on flying.

So far all the passengers and one pilot has been raised from the chopper while the other pilot is missing. The chopper is planned to be raised either later today or tomorrow.

I can neither see anyone blaming the pilots. According to eyewitness reports a technical malfunction seems to be more likely reason but we shall see what comes up in the investigation.

Thank you Heliport.:ok:

I think enough has been said.

I couldn't see any line between a company fact and "raising the possibility of pilot error"???

In the GOM discussions it seems to be normal to discuss the operators and their way to operate the ships and to organize the work. Why is it in this case a question?

Fact is a S-76 modern ship is down, killing collegues and passengers. Thats the only accident fact at the moment.

But a fact is also that copterline in the past had some trouble with the kind of their operations. And in fact with the kind of operation on this route across the baltic sea.

Same to me.

To the newbies on the block:
This is a rumour network, we thrive on it.
As long as no-one is disrespectful or litigous then fair game.

I remember the Scilly Isles S61, just short of finals, fly itself very smoothly and quietly into the flat calm sea on a beautiful day.
I think it was poor CRM and rad alt settings that caught them out.

Moderater,

Please take charge of this increasingly unpleasant thread.

Hello People!

Obviously, emotions are running quite high on this thread...

However, before everyone loses their minds, let's just put into perspective what's going on.

Whenever there is a tragic accident, there will be people wondering what happened. That's human nature, because it is a 'self-preservation' response. The intellectual challenge is natural. You'll not stop it.

Some asked, "Can't we just wait for the accident report?" That report could be months away. People aren't just going to forget about the accident until then.

The problem is, as details of the accident are sketchy at first, so the number of possible causes will be high. Still, I don't see anything wrong with going through scenarios based on what I know. That might just save me from a different accident.

Some scenarios will inevitably apportion blame to a crew who are sadly are unable to defend themselves. Is it so wrong to consider these though? Sometimes, even the best can make a mistake, and if they have, we should all learn from it.

However...

There is however a moral and ethical responsibility to that we owe to the lost crew, the families and friends and those involved.

This is a public forum and we don't know who may be reading at all. So for that reason alone, it is prudent to keep some views off this list and to yourself. Isn't this is a basic rule of society.

It always amazes me how people seem to lose their social skills, simply because they are on an anonymous internet forum. Why is that? A good test for whether something is appropriate for this board is this.

Imagine yourself in a very public place...would you stand up and shout it out loud? If not, then don't post it here!

Another problem (seen on this thread) is where people have tried to link unrelated issues to the accident.

If there is absolutley no connection between a company's past record and this accident, then why mention it? That is irresponsible to say the least.

So to sumarise what I'm saying...

1. Some need to accept that people are going to question and speculate, when they hear of an accident happens.

2. Others need to be more responsible when posting after an accident...maybe it's better off the list, simply for the benifit of those close to or involved.

cl12pv2s

This thread is strange. Everything here is pure speculation so either you allow speculation or don't. You possibly can't allow speculation as long as it doesn't allude that the pilots or the operator was to blame!

It is about the same likelyhood that the pilots would defend themselves on a public forum like this no matter if they are dead or not. I assume that everyone here is anxious to find a possible cause of the accident. I am quite sure that the pilots and their loved ones want the truth to get out. As an example - it's possible, but not very likely and can't be ruled out at this stage that the maintenance department used the same BIC pen as some of the executives did last year. I say again, I don't think that's the case but why shouldn't we be allowed to discuss such things openly? Let's just be open-minded to all possible causes, likely or not. If the accident is due to irregularities of the operator, I am sure that the pilots involved would have wanted this to get out..

I think that it's time for everyone opting to read this thread to accept the fact that everything written here, before the accident report arrives, is pure speculation.

The chopper has been raised from the bottom of the sea. Blade parts will be raised later. Here are some pictures of it. As I understand it the door that is open was opened by divers. http://www.iltalehti.fi/2005/08/13/2...23100_uu.shtml

Both pilots were either not wearing their seatbelts or they survived the crash and then opened their seatbelts. Anyway their seatbelts were found open. All the passengers weared their seatbelts when they were found. One of the pilots is still missing.

Now it’s also reported that the Estonians have labelled the investigation as secret???

There is already a lot of information available about this accident. I am confident that the reason of this accident will be found shortly. What will take longer is to find what lead to the accident.

The chopper was equipped with a “black box”. Some reports say it’s CVR some say it’s FDR some say it’s both. Anyone know what’s the fact in this case?

I think it´s unlikelikely that it has FDR (Flight data recorder) However it should be equipped with CVR (Cockpit voice recorder) and since it´s a C+ it has FADEC (Full authority digital engine control) engine control so it should be possible to extract engine data from the Mini HUMS (Health usage monitoring system).

Interesting to see that the wheels are down and floats deployed!

So highly unlikely that it was CFIT, more proof that this was NOT the pilots fault.

I guess Martin1234, the difference is that we must keep to speculation, and avoid defamation or slander.

It is one thing to speculate as to what might have happened and another to say, "The crewchief/pilot/manager/passenger was/is a known jerk/felon/incompetant/murderer and that's why the accident happened." Those statements are not speculation, they are outright slander. It is possibly bad form, probably actionable, and certainly not defensible from someone who is now dead.

My thoughts are to those lost, and to those among the company, regulators and manufacturers who now are working hard to understand this one so as to prevent a next one.

We are all eager to know and understand the cause of this accident so as to avoid a similar occurrence in the future. This is the reason why Flight Recorders are mandated and carried.

It is difficult to understand Aesir's comment on the presence of the FDR (as he comes from Iceland - a signatory to the Cyprus Protocol); JAR-OPS 3 requires both a CVR and FDR for a helicopter of this size and date of individual Certificate of Airworthiness - it is therefore likely that it would have been fitted with a combination recorder satisfying both functions.

Most accident investigations are extremely thorough and therefore take a considerable time to publish the results of their deliberations; not to discuss the accident, and even speculate on the causes - in crew-rooms and even on PPRuNe - would be unnatural.

The more we discuss the probable causes of accidents the sooner we begin to understand our own (and mechanical) frailties.

Jim

Martin1234,

The problem is, by saying this, you are in effect accusing the company of manslaughter.

This is a very serious allegation indeed, and that is why the investigators will dedicate serious time in finding the truth.

I don't think we (at this time) have the right to make that sort of allegation based on the little evidence we have in an open forum.

Not only is it a little insensitive (I'm sure the company is grieving too as well as the family), but it is also pushing the boundries of defamation, libel and slander by implying the link. What if you are completely wrong and there is no link between the accident and the past history?

So we must be careful in what we write, both from a sensitivity point of view, and also a proffessional point of view.

cl12pv2s

JimL

"It is difficult to understand Aesir's comment on the presence of the FDR (as he comes from Iceland - a signatory to the Cyprus Protocol); "

?? Uhh.. well its just because I fly helicopters of this size which do not have FDR!

But thanks for pointing out that helicopters of this size should have installed FDR if issued certificate of airworthiness after 1999. This particicular aircraft was a 2000 model so it's likely that it had a FDR installed.

Reference: JAR-OPS 3.715