Did the concrete block fall directly on top of the cable car or did it roll down the side of the mountain before hitting it?

Hi All,

I had time to rethink what I said and will remain with my statement. I feel very sad for the pilot - maybe even the company. Yes it was a one in a million chance but if he did not fly over the cables for whatever reason the one - in a - million chance immediately dissapears (sorry I come from a safety background in aviation and can be a pain in the ar$e on the subject) :E

Re loadswings in congested areas (not that this was). A very dear friend was killed a few years ago in Cape Town CBD when he offloaded a aircon unit on a office block.

It was roughly 0500 AM on a Sunday morning - streets was cleared. The Mi-8 crashed on top of the building and burnt out there - imagine it rolled off and Cape Town traffic was below ...

WHen I was last in SA (and in ops) slinging in a busy CBD would never be allowed.

I did radio masts many moons ago in a Puma SA 330 and Alo III ... maybe about 100 hrs total so no tmuch experience but never had a accidental drop - thanks God for that but what was never even a question ... never ever over known populated areas. It was SOP's - so you just do not do it.

Sincere condolences to the families.

To the Pilot : Strength mate.

Gunship old mate,

i'm not a special mathematician but i would bet the feasibility of hitting the 2,5 inches cable with a 750kg cup of concrete falling from 1000ft on flight speed, yes it was a direct hit, is lower than the feasibility of an engine failure or other technical problem. If we want to avoid such "one - in a - million chances" we have to stay in bed. Compare it with the AS 350 news chopper accident in the US. Pure luck that on that accident no other people were hurt or killed. Have the news operators now to evacuate the whole city before acting over it?

Thats a really good word from a guy in your business. :) how is the Mi-24 going on?

Got a call from Austria, the hook seems to be mechanically in good condition, investigators looking now to an electical failure or as normally to the pilot. The load was lost from the hook, after the flight the hook was found opened.The pilot is 35 years old and with 850 flighthours and only 150h external loads not so much experienced. But that means nothing at the moment! Hauling concrete is a beginner job in the Alps. Because normally is concrete silent. The pilot was before the accident 4h on duty and before beginning single pilot operations 4 weeks ago normally checked out on external loads by an 11.000h pilot. The SA315B was flying round about 50kt.
On a first statement the authority stated that Knaus have all necessary approvements and there is no indication at the moment of a management problem.

I agree with Guns - it's just plain stupid to fly a sling-load over an area where people may be below. Some argue that one shouldn't get out of bed then (basing this on the fact that a helicopter itself should never fly over an area with people below in case of engine failure).

They argue this because the odds of what happened in Austria are so slim.

Except they miss one point I feel. If a chopper's engine fails there is STILL a very good chance of a decent landing through auto-rotation (and a fairly reasonable opportunity to put it down AWAY from people or at least in an open space, circumstances allowing it - the odds are far better than a lost sling load "out of control" and falling straight down).

Had that chopper had an engine failure over that cable and it's gondolas, I will put money on the fact that the pilots would have auto-rotated onto something ELSE (like the snow, mountain, rocks, whatever) and would have avoided that cable and gondolas like the plague...

Get the difference?

To sum up, Guns is correct I feel, with just a small amount of basic discipline and foresight (closing the cableway first etc), this tragedy would never have occurred.

That commander should be hauled over the coals (sorry mate) - there are far too many "gung-ho" "chance takers" out there...

:p:p:p Still where I parked it 2 years ago and cancelled it's airworthy "Certificate" ... oh and the other one that had DOUBLE engine failure (apparently that never happens as well) ... well it is still lying where I "parked" it 4 years ago .. RIP 19 Oct 01.

Oh and the Alo III 319 and the President's Sea King Commando ... just where they where parked ... Africa dear Africa .. :E

From the BBC website at 16:50 BST:

If he authorised it .. why not just authorise it 10 -50 m to the left / right of the cable car / line ?

Why over it ? :confused: :confused: :confused:

>>why not just authorise it 10 -50 m to the left / right of the cable car / line ?
>>Why over it ?

Presumably the route had to CROSS the cable at some stage.

Meaning no disrespect to any of the above correspondents. If as has been suggested that there may have been no alternative to flying over the cable car lines. It is shear folly to fly over a "live" line with an under-slung load. The same with roads, railways, buildings, anything whereby a bystander may be injured irregardless of the unlikelyhood of an inadvertant release or failure.

My symathies to the berieved and the pilot(s) involved

I empathise with the pilot - with such low hours, he probably was just doing as he had been told. Had no involvement in the planning, I suspect.
The route should be devised to bypass the cable car path and if this was impossible - close the lift for +- 15 mins of the task.

Management (helo company and cable car company) have to take this hit:sad:

Just out of curiousity, since when is a cable car considered to be "populated area"???

From what I have seen on TV there are rocks, rocks and nothing but rocks down that valley and just one little tiny cable.

Why do we always have to look for the guilty one? Can't we just call it a tragic incident?

Surely not...
 

Anyone, while doing external load work, using a cable car route as a line feature, up the mountain and fly over it, along it, while it is in operation, must be stupid and very inexperience.

I am sure this wasn't the case here?

And if he had a dual check as stated by a senior more experienced pilot, I am sure the obstacle would have been mentioned and discussed and crossed safely and not followed up the mountain. But we do not have any information with regards to his routing.

Furthermore it seems like all aspects of the operation was approved and covered.

Crossing the line feature or the cable car route at an angle at a 1000 feet above the cable cars seems safe and considerate to me. If it was me crossing the cable at 90 degrees, I would have seen it as an acceptable risk, even more so flying over at 1000 feet up.

South Africa is strict with it's regulations about external load operations in CBD's, but even after the accident, companies still did it, but first you had to demonstrate to SACAA the operation could be done safely, including safe contingencies were in place and entry and exit routes would be adhered to.

Recent ops in Sandton, Pretoria University and at Johannesburg International Airport comes to mind. So I disagree with your statement Gunns that it isn't allowed.

Best of luck to the pilot and the company.

But one thing I can't believe form Time Out's post:

If you fly a SA315B and you lose a load of 750 kilograms and have been flying with these loads for 4 hours earlier, you WILL definitely realise you have lost the load.

Firstly let me pass on my best wishes to the families of those killed. Secondly to the pilot/s involved I truly feel for you guys. This was a one in a trillion chance happening. ( I did the math ) I have done my share of long lining and I fail to see how someone can sit in front of a computer and critisize when they dont know the situation. Production / Precision line work is some of the most challenging in the world and I can tell you that nothing would ever get done in this part of the world if we were to never fly over roards, rails ,rivers or wires. This wasnt bad airmanship guys, just bad luck. Very bad luck.

As with all accidents, this one will prove to be composed of a chain of events which at any stage could have been broken and the accident prevented.
Even if it turns out to be finger trouble on the part of an inexperienced pilot, the chain could have been broken by better supervision, organisation, training, liaison - at any stage, all it would have taken was one person to say 'no that is a crap idea, why don't we do it another way/at a different time/etc'
It is too easy to blame the pilot and ignore all the other people/factors that put him in the position.

Gunship my dear, you have i'm assured now, you are coming from safety background in aviation :) :) :)

Sorry back to the thread now

The accident area is a wide glacier with just a few obstacles, the cable, the pylons and the gondolas. To bring the concrete to the construction site the helicopter must cross the cables, there is no other way possible.

TC, your words show me your lack of knowledge of such kind of operations. You could'n stop the cable car a few minutes because the helicopters flying without stops. Each rotation needs 4-5 minutes, depending on the route and distance, the helicopter hovers during the fill and the emptying of the kettle. That means they will cross the cable each 2-3 minutes, on one way with a filled kettle, on the other way the kettle is empty. It needs sometimes a few hundred rotations to fill the construction site with the needed amount of concrete. 7h a day and day for day the same. As said this is a beginner job in the Alps and you can imagine now why some of this guys are so really artistic with sling loads. Thats a very very hard and stressing job to the pilot easy to compare with Ag jobs.

Spunk
That's exactly the situation in the accident area absolutely not to compare with towns or other "populated areas".

Because the load release happened in cruising flight i believe the experience of the pilot is without concern. A pilot with 850 h should know the right knob in the same way as a 10.000h pilot. If he have really pressed... nobody knows it at the moment!!!

I know that I am only reading the news and not involved but ... folks are suggesting here that the helo was ferrying liquid concrete in a kettle. The same BBC web report from which I posted that the cross-route had been approved, says this in the first paragraph:
Another paragraph says,
Of course, they may have misunderstood that that it was actually a kettle. Perhaps some other reports from closer to the site will be able to confirm. To the people involved, it's immaterial but - in trying to understand the picture of activity - might it be different if they were moving pre-cast blocks, as opposed to liquid concrete?

I beg to differ with some of the opinions that have been posted here by various individuals.

There would be NO circumstances that should allow an external load to be flown over an operational cable car. It is precisely because this kind of activity is not permitted, that you never read about accidents of this kind. Dealing with a construction crew and personnel involved with the operation on the ground, is an entirely different matter than flying an external load over the general public.

The onus is on the Operator to ensure the safety not only of their own crew members, but also the public who are an innocent party to the operation that is going on around them. The initial safety consideration must always be the worst case scenario. If a risk analysis originates from this worst case, even the most unlikely "freak accident" is eliminated at stage one of the operational planning phase.

I have set up and executed hundreds of external load jobs, and cannot tell you of a single one where anything like this has occurred, would be considered, or would be permitted. It is an unacceptable practice to fly an external load over an area where members of the public are located.

The issue is not the cause of the load release. It is in the operational and safety aspects in the set-up of the job. It is a truly tragic occurence.

Just for reference, it might be worth considering the FAA rules pertaining to external loads - pretty practical requirements, pretty practical advice.

Extract from FAR Part 133

(d) Notwithstanding the provisions of part 91 of this chapter, the holder of a Rotorcraft External-Load Operator Certificate may conduct (in rotorcraft type certificated under and meeting the requirements of part 27 or 29 of this chapter, including the external-load attaching means) rotorcraft external-load operations over congested areas if those operations are conducted without hazard to persons or property on the surface and comply with the following:

(1) The operator must develop a plan for each complete operation, coordinate this plan with the FAA Flight Standards District Office having jurisdiction over the area in which the operation will be conducted, and obtain approval for the operation from that district office. The plan must include an agreement with the appropriate political subdivision that local officials will exclude unauthorized persons from the area in which the operation will be conducted, coordination with air traffic control, if necessary, and a detailed chart depicting the flight routes and altitudes.

(2) Each flight must be conducted at an altitude, and on a route, that will allow a jettisonable external load to be released, and the rotorcraft landed, in an emergency without hazard to persons or property on the surface.

(e) Notwithstanding the provisions of part 91 of this chapter, and except as provided in Sec. 133.45(d), the holder of a Rotorcraft External-Load Operator Certificate may conduct external-load operations, including approaches, departures, and load positioning maneuvers necessary for the operation, below 500 feet above the surface and closer than 500 feet to persons, vessels, vehicles, and structures, if the operations are conducted without creating a hazard to persons or property on the surface.

I am with Recuperator,

if you don't feel that load "leave" you are drugged/dead/dumb - you call it! It wasn't the concrete running out, but the whole kettle, wasn't it?

That Helicopter must have made a jump that would definitely call your attention - if not the new guys, the oldtimers for sure!

Can't really blame the pilot or the company though, as this is the work they choose and as far as it looks they did it within legal limits. You don't do it, someone else will.

Now rocks here or there, obviously at least part of the cable track seems to go over the ski track, which means a fairly wide stretch of area, where you never know when someone is underneath.

Considering all the dumb regulations one has to deal with, mainly brought on by non-flying bureaucrats without ever consulting with operators/pilots/etc. - basically denying the people with the experience to use common sense - it really strikes me that it is allowed to do cargo-ops under these circumstances.

As mentioned before, if there is just a slight chance of personal involvement, the area has to be cleared, and if this means, you have to wait for the end of the skiing season, so be it!
But telecom can't wait I guess!

Condolences to all victims and a heads-up to the pilots, I hope you get through this!

3top

gunship,

i saw the video of the helicopter crashing on the building while doing the aircon job.

the strop was so short that the helicopter was right down near the top of the office block and the tail rotor struck the lift well or out building right next to the machine.

a longer strop and it would not have happened from observing the video.

PAXboy

i can confirm firsthand it was a kettle filled with liquid concrete.

3top, Recuperator

at the press conference Roy Knaus personally told in front of the cameras, "the load leaved the helicopter and the pilot feeled the release IMMEDIATELY and lost the load out of the view in the mirror."

This two points and all other versions and rumours are tales by medias or selfnamed "experts" coming out of every holes now.

It's seems absolutely clear that knaus or the pilot have not broken any law in preparation. The whole job was right approved and in line with the austrian, german or switzerland (as Alps countries) laws. Several helicopter operators from this countries and the national authorities have stated now that they would give the approvements and would have done the job in the same way.

There are no questions about this points. The one and only question is why released the hook the load?

I found this as an example from US on the web:
http://classichelicoptercorp.com/index.htm

"Note: The Mobilization Rate may vary if the project site is outside our local area or in a city where special permits are required. If the work is to be performed in a densely populated or congested area, we need two weeks notice so that the proper permits can be obtained. Lifts performed in non-congested areas can be executed on short notice. "

OK, Knaus hold all the permits...

Cyclic Hotline
CHAPTER 102. EVALUATE A PART 133 CONGESTED AREA PLAN

"The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has determined that external-load operations are in the public interest and do not inherently pose an undue risk to the public."

"Densely Populated Area. Title 14 CFR§§ 91.313 and 133.45(d) use the term “densely populated” area. Those areas of a city, town, or settlement that contain a large number of occupied homes, factories, stores, schools, and other structures are considered densely populated."