Chinook - Mull of Kintyre
 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/...000/474093.stm


just stumbled across this

See my later posting.

[This message has been edited by Skycop (edited 18 October 1999).]

Check out this months Pilot magazine. http://www.pilotweb.co.uk/
I don't think you can access the article on the web but it will give you something to read in Smiths when you pop in to pick up her Cosmo.

RIP all.


[This message has been edited by PNVS (edited 18 January 2000).]

So PNVS, you believe that a 150 kt cruise is normal in a Chinook? and that in the event of a run up, the vibration which would undoubtedly follow with the NR sitting above 100%, combined with an outrageous amount of lever to try and contain the NR would not preclude the reading of the instruments.......Bollox! The fadec at that time was not serviceable. We were told to fly on regardless that the TPs had thrown the towel in at Boscombe. Whilst I agree that run ups are not 'normal' let me say that when we got fadec it was supposed to be perfect with continual monitoring to prevent overtemps and the like, well how many overtemps have we had? DOZENS! I personally have had one run up during start and several attempts at overtemp. The issue of wx and icing clearance is a red herring. OK they flew into a cloud covered hill, but if you had any experience of SH ops you would know that the legal wx limits are quite low and that all SH crews are able to operate in ****e wx, especially guys from their flt. Nobody knows exactly what happened on that day, and for that reason we should not have blamed the crew! We may speculate but we will never really know.

Seems to me all this talk of FADEC is a red herring. Clearly a lot of people have an axe to grind over various technical aspects of the new machine.
The facts are clear. The crew were grubbing just below cloudbase in filthy wx when they should have been at FL100 or home in the bar. The wreckage was just a few tens of feet above the cloudbase, exactly where youd expect to find it in the event of a sudden pull-up at the last second. I recall the report said it was in a somewhat nose-up attitude at impact. This all points to CFIT. I simply cannot imagine how engine problems could have caused this crash, short of distracting both pilots from their lookout. The sad conclusion is that the drivers werent looking where they were going.
Now why they were not IFR is a different matter, I dont know the icing situation at the time, perhaps that was the reason. If so why did they accept the trip, "company pressure"? Is pleading safety frowned on on the RAF? Was the ILS/radar at destination u/s? Why didnt the service put them in a Herc instead. Although rated for such conditions just how much experience did they actually have in real grubbing? I doubt very much. Terribly sad, and a great loss to so many.
Iam sure this post will offend someone, for which I apologise in advance, but I feel too little attention has been payed to the commonsense aspect of this event.

Looks very similar to Sundeland crashes about 60 years ago (hit high ground in bad weather).
If you are in a Chinook with full IF gear there is no way that you should be grovelling around with a full load of passengers aboard.
Imagine, just above you, flying into Prestwick in an aeroplane are a couple of pilots in shirt sleeves and 300 passengers going to the airport. Mr RAF has enough nav equipment to take him to the same destination, but decides to travel visual.
The basic thing here is airmanship, and I really think that despite any supposedly engine problems, you must look at basics and wonder why passengers were subject to pilots not seeing where they were going.

As a complete outsider (but 11,000 hrs on helicopters) the balance of probabilities has to be CFIT, whatever defects the aircraft may have been subject to and personally I'm surprised at the attempts to apportion blame elsewhere.

I do not think the FADEC was the direct cause of this accident, however, it does have a significance. Because of the ongoing problems with it (old software, no-one able to debug it) the usual procedure for bringing a new type of aircraft into service appears to have been bypassed for reasons not publically known (how long overdue in service was the HC2?). If Boscombe Down had not completed their test flying then it appears that the aircraft type cannot have had a full CA release and therefore it would not normally have been in squadron service i.e. NO-ONE should have been flying it operationally. (The pre-service test flying was stopped because the test pilots refused to continue until the FADEC glitches were sorted. Therefore icing trials were not completed and the aircraft was not cleared for flight in cold cloud conditions).

It seems these guys were ordered to fly in circumstances they were very unhappy about, especially as the aircraft had other unserviceabilities. Anyone not having seen active military service will perhaps not understand the pressure on these guys to go ahead despite their concerns. (NI being an operational theatre, a court martial is a possible alternative!). If the aircraft did not have an icing clearance then there was no IFR option - so please stop bleating on about it. We all know these guys should have been on an IFR flight or in the bar. The crew knew it too. They wanted to take a Mk1 which had that IFR option and requested it. Instead they were ordered to take an aircraft of questionable serviceability over the sea in poor weather, well below MSA and below reliable radio navaid coverage. Why? Never published. They would probably have been obliged to rely on Dead Reckoning backed up by a GPS (which apparently had previously been giving some significant cross-track errors prior to the final flight). At the end of the day they were probably finally killed by a simple navigational error followed by CFIT.

Military discipline sadly appears to have over-ruled airmanship (and the normal flight authorisation safety net) and the rest is now history. Jon Tapper and Rick Cook were not grossly negligent, they were high calibre, intelligent and experienced guys carrying out bad orders to the best of their ability and they paid for it with their lives. Why the flight was allowed to take place in those circumstances is another matter. The label of gross negligence is perhaps better placed elsewhere, further up the chain. Labelling the deceased crew with it was a scandal.

RIP Guys. The truth is out there. Let's hope it comes out soon.

[This message has been edited by Skycop (edited 18 October 1999).]

Well said Skycop. Piston Broke, if you knew these guys and the job that they did when they were not on detachment to NI then you would be in no position to query their experience in crap wx. All UK mil Helo pilots are trained to operate in marginal wx as they routinely have to operate in NI, Bosnia, Kosovo, Falkland Islands etc etc so that we can support the British Army at all times in order for the Army to achieve their goals.

Gentlemen, when I penned last evenings post I was aware that perhaps I had made a simplistic judgement, hence the apology. Today I’ve read the Pilot Magazine article and also your replies and now feel a little more in command of my thoughts. I was astonished to learn of the Delaware incident, and all other FADEC problems, I had no idea. Still, let me to run through the post on this thread;
PVNS, (17 Oct) I agree entirely with the sad fact that this case will run and run as there is no Proof. I once took a Chinook (not this variant, I admit) to it’s top whack, perhaps 140Kt and found it most unpleasant and I can sympathize with the instrument panel point raised by Hydraulic Palm Tree (HPT, if I may?)
HPT, I note that your remarks (17 Oct) re overtemps seem limited to starts or have you seen them on flight too? I think this is a important point, and if so limited does not necessarily reflect on the FADEC performance in flight. However I cannot see why wx & icing clearance are a red herring, and as this accident occurred in low cloud and poor vis this must be a factor; can you or anyone else please quote the Met actual/forecast for the area, along with icing levels? Also to judge fairly we need to know the icing clearance of the Chinook.
barsandstars, bear in mind that the Chinook is one of the very few helos cleared to fly in only LIGHT icing conditions. However I feel compelled to object to your “Mr RAF…enough nav equipment”. Military nav equipment historically lags a decade or more behind what’s found in even basic club aircraft, though in this case the advanced TANS was reasonably up to date. As Devil’s advocate, though, I would be looking hard at the DR plot.
Skycop, I agree entirely, and find it incredible that a product rejected by Boscombe Down could ever find its way into squadron service. Your remark re “ordered to fly…” is exactly what I meant by ”company pressure”. As an ex-mil pilot I can visualize the pressure these guys were put under, this is exactly my point; [theory…] some poor sod was tasked to fly a new and untrusted Chinook variant on a VIP trip in vile wx. He objected and asked for a good old Mk 1 but was told that none was available (perhaps one wasn’t, perhaps it was just politically expedient to fly these bods in the new cab). Perhaps he tried to cry “Safety” and got told “You an operational RAF helo jock or a pussy? Eh? Sort youself out!!Go fly!!” I fancy military discipline, as you suggested, may be a major cause of this accident, and feel your summary of “carrying out bad orders to the best of their ability “ is likely to be right on the mark.
HTP. Sorry again, I knew I’d upset someone, I didn’t question their ability, I only speculated on their experience in such conditions and meant no criticism by it. I will stand in the front rank to deny their gross negligence, an outrageous and unsustainable slur. However they did fly into a stuffed cloud whilst grubbing at low level when anyone , by choice, would have been IFR at FL100. I, too, have spent many years grubbing like this amongst the terrain, the management and my better judgement in Chinooks and various civvy types.
Ideally we’d like to know how they got there. Ultimately I just think they were suckered into an all too human mistake.

Piston Broke, glad you can see things more clearly now. The crew were put in a situation that not many would have escaped from. If their radio navaids were not available due to their very low altitude there would have been no way of cross-checking an erroneus GPS output. A Dead Reckoning plot is next to useless over the sea - there are no track or timing check features apart from the coast - and they hit that. Over the sea in poor conditions it is easy to get a false impression of groundspeed and rate of closure. It is quite probable that they were unwittingly fully IMC, not realising they had actually coasted in until seconds before impact. Was the intercom u/s? (one of the switches in the wreckage was found in the emergency position). If the normal intercom failed just before coasting in it is quite possible that vital crew co-operation broke down at this critical moment, especially as the crew were possibly not so familiar with the switchery of this type as that of the HC1.

The passengers were of extremely high value in the anti-terrorist role (which is presumably why such a previously highly regarded crew was nominated to fly them). It was a poor management decision to "put all the eggs in one basket", especially as the basket was known to have at least one hole in it. Was this internal politics trying to show that there were really no problems with this unproven new aircraft?. When it all went terribly wrong was it perhaps more convenient to blame the dead crew rather than where it perhaps really belonged, at a senior management level?

In any event, there is so much doubt over the circumstances that it was unreasonable to apply the spiteful stigma of "Gross Negligence", especially as this was not the findings of the RAF's own Board of Inquiry. If we can all see this verdict is open to reasonable doubt then why won't the MOD? Is there a can of worms waiting to be opened? "Cause not known" would have been more satisfactory and would not have caused so much extra grief to the breaved.

The following might be considered by any future enquiry:

1. Who was responsible for ordering the crew to fly in these circumstances?

2. Who was responsible for the "Gross Negligence" verdict?

A correlation between anwers 1 and 2 would not be a great surprise to many of us.

Skycop, the more I look at this the clearer it seems to become. I have to disagree strongly with your remarks re nav and crosschecking the TANS though.

Given a dodgy GPS and with minimal radio nav coverage at 2-300ft dr should have been the order of the day, and if they had the same opinion of dr as you’ve described it would have been very irresponsible to launch at all. May I respectfully point out that the RN has been using dr alone to return to a moving ship in similar weather since the 1930s. My marginal weather training included offset NDB approaches to rigs that prevent you bumping into anything if you overshoot, we even learned to judge ground speed and rate of closure but then we were only supporting some oil company or other. Rigs are nowhere near the size of a mountain, but flying directly at them in crap wx, even when we knew where they were was just not done. They even taught us to recognize when we had gone inadvertently IMC… So when someone aims to make an actual landfall straight at a 1400ft high mountain in 300’ cloudbase and 1500m vis it seems rather imprudent to me. Why not dr in perfect safety to a point west abeam the Macrihanish VORDME (10 NNE the Mull) and then intercept a low coast at a known and shallow angle.. This also provides the “impossible” cross-cx of the suspect TANS before coasting in. That, surely, is quite basic operational dr and good airmanship. Wouldnt you slow down if theres a cliff in the fog ahead? Shoulda diverted to Prestwick with a throbbing great VOR at TRN to help if you ask me. A sliver of doubt is beginning to trouble me over this whole nav business. It all looks to me like a CAVOK plan that has ignored the implications of lousy wx conditions both in the planning and the execution, with several elementary principles of Navigation (intentionally capitalized) simply omitted. Could it be that the RAF of the 1990s has become so adept at following a push-button nav-plan that dr and foul wx visual div nav have fallen into disuse on the squadrons?

Additionally, I find it hard to see how an experienced aviator (be it the crew, the Ops Officer or the CO/Flight Commander) would plan anything (except a follow-up SAR mission and a fleet of taxis) around a VMC-only transit from Ireland to E Scotland via Glen Mor (I assume that was the route) given the wx. I should have thought it almost certain that wx in the valley would be worse than offshore, ie cloud on the deck, and then its a very long way to hovertaxi in fog disregarding every rule in the low flying manual. Given the pax were such high value how could they even consider risking a forced landing in the bundhu or the hazards of mountain rescue flying techniques?
This is one big can of worms.

My feeling is this is an institutional problem that involves the servicewide attitudes to aircraft acceptance procedures, procurement, squadron and group maintenance, the training system, CRM and, as someone said, military discipline.

Christ, cant blame the RAF, make it an engine runaway and blame the crew!

Stinks.

Piston Broke, there may be some truth in what you say although I am unsure why you think that low flying rules were broken, the WX limits for SH are surprisingly low. As you can see, the more you think about this the more doubt there is. I agree, perhaps the sortie should not have gone. So why were the crew grossly negligent for going as ordered? As I implied, being unable to defend themselves they were the softest target.

[This message has been edited by Skycop (edited 19 October 1999).]

To solve it once and for all, why don't we listen to the voice tapes......ah that's right, they skipped that $500 extra on the $12 million upgrade, but it did get a nice launch party at Boeing.

A sad sad tale of cock-ups that starts at the top and seeps its way down. You're right pissed & wotsit, they couldn't blame the whole RAF, that would never do. Not nice.

[This message has been edited by Pinger (edited 19 October 1999).]

[This message has been edited by Pinger (edited 20 October 1999).]

Pinger, I'm glad you amended your comments. Your previous post was completely uncalled for. However, if you still want some friendly banter - Sorry to see that you had to settle for a Navy job..

------------------
May the Force be with you - and may Gravity treat you gently..

Just found this web site but been interested in the chinook crash for a while. Hope you don't mind a non helicopter type butting in. Having read the full board of inquiry (BOI) I think that in many ways talk of engine failures, FADEC problems, spurious warning captions etc. etc. is missing the point somewhat. All of the previous messages are just speculation. True, most are informed speculation from what appears to be experienced operators but they are still just opinions. Which is what the BOI was. Speculation and opinion from experienced chinook operators. In his closing comments the president of the BOI said, "With no ADR or CVR, survivors or eyewitnesses, the Board based its findings on logical argument derived from the limited evidence available. There were MANY POTENTIAL CAUSES OF THE ACCIDENT and despite detailed and in depth analysis, the Board was UNABLE TO DETERMINE A DEFINITE CAUSE."

And this is the whole point, all of the conclusions were best guesses. No one can argue that good pilots don't fly into the lumpy stuff. We all know they do. But in this case there is no conclusive proof of anything apart from they are all dead. Rick and Jon may have made a mistake but we can never be 100% sure so why do we condemn them?
Just a thought from someone who has only flown in helicopters as baggage.

Ask MOD. Someone fouled up and it wasn't necessarily the crew.

And what about the lovely new HUMS system that was ordered by MoD following Mull of Kintyre?
MoD blame tech difficulties for the year on year delay - first time I can recall that they've haven't blamed the crew.

Lots of letters in this month's PILOT magazine about the aforementioned article, including one from Wratten.
Well worth a read - at a UK airport newsstand near you
cheers
starflex

I heard along the grapevine that a Chinook MK2 had a forced landing last week (possibly 25/11). Everyone got out OK but people remain tight lipped about what happened. Anyone heard anything?

Word has it that the aft pylon came off just as they were landing! No-one hurt amazingly!!

According to the Daily Express (Friday and Saturday) it appears that MOD are settling of court to the families of the pilots unjustly blamed for this. Well well. Does this mean that someone in high places is listening at last?

Strangely enough the aft pylon on the Chinook can be made to detach by selecting too much nose up during a zero speed dust landing: suddenly introducing the rapidly rotating blades to the ground in this ungentlemanly manner upsets them somewhat and they decide to jump ship along with most of the rest of the back of the aircraft. But it takes Sqn execs to do it properly!!!

Well said, Skycop. Perhaps some justice at last, through the back door.
If memory serves me right, the Board members did not find the crew Culpably Negligent. They, like many of us, may have believed that the crew, doing their best in the circumstances, made an error of judgement. The crew may also have been distracted at a critical moment: possibly by a spurious systems warning. It seems that they were not happy with the integrity of the FADEC, or their conversion to and familiarity with the new Chinook Mark 2. Perhaps the Board had this in mind.
What borders on the incredible is that up the chain from the Board, senior officers managed to attach the 'Culpable' label. What's the point of having a BOI then? Why not just let the Group Captains and Airships make their own minds up....bearing in mind the political and economic consequences, rather than the outmoded concepts of justice and loyalty.
Cynical,me? Never!

There are some accidents that just run and run, look at the assassination of JFK, there were millions watching and they still can't decide who shot who.

The Chinook accident on the MoK had very few people watching, and there wasn't much left unburnt after the impact to draw any substantial conclusions. In these circumstances one has to look at the probable cause, which is what I believe the BOI did. However when it comes to apportioning blame, then it should attach itself (formally) to everyone who formed part of the links in the chain of events. It is far too simplistic (and often too easy) to just blame the pilots.

The FADEC COULD have been a contributory cause, as COULD a thousand other things such as autopilot runaways, jammed controls, in fact anything that could have put the aircraft where it was. We just don't (and won't)know. Sad to say but that part of the coast over the years is littered with aircraft that unexpectedly hit cumulogranite. They weren't the first and certainly won't be the last.

It would appear to me that there are an increasing number of "plastic aircraft" these days that crash and leave very little behind to enable the investigators to determine the cause - Mathew Harding and Kent Air Ambulance Squirrel crashes to name but two. The best epitaph that all these guys could have is for flight data recorders or at the very least CVR's to be fitted to all military and commercial helicopters. If anything drastic happens to me, I for one would like my family, my friends and the wider aviation community to know WHY, even if it means letting the world know I ****** up!

From experience with bereaved relatives, it's the "not knowing" that hurts the most.

more correspondence in this months' "Pilot" magazine...

Agaricus:
As you will well know, you are UTTERLY out of order involving the Mull of Kintyre Chinook in your 'roll call' of pilot error! Though that may be your personal 'opinion' it is clearly unsupported by any facts, which is precisely why both pilots have, after a long battle for the truth, been unambiguously cleared of any blame whatsoever!

Though clearly you 'think' you know better than the experts!

I think he was drawing parallels with an occasion where the crew went flying despite nagging doubts, in this case about the aircraft, in the back of their minds.

Tandem rotor. Nobody has ever really explained in the Mull case why the two crew descended to 1000 feet over the sea and flew straight at the mull. If they had observed the simple concept of safety altitude that accident would never have happened. Sometimes there are none so blind as those that cannot see!

satsuma

If you are correct that agaricus' point was that the Chinook Mk 2 was, at that time, un-airworthy, then I apologise. He was absolutely right.

DOUBLE BOGEY

We really shouldn't digress, so all I will say on the matter of the Mull is this. If you were discussing issues of fact, we could have a debate. However due to the lack of any survivors, any eyewitnesses, or recorded data, we are left only with matters of opinion. Yours appears different to mine, but then I am probably as familiar with that accident as it is possible for anyone to be. After a long fight by many of us for justice, my opinion is now in accordance with the official view. Yours is not, but of course if you too have the courage of your convictions, you could always now do as many of us did, and embark on a 17 year fight. Rather than simply bumping your gums together.

Apologies for the digression, but the link (if there is one) is the value of data/voice recording in accidents. It provides a window to the truth. Rather than allowing 'opinions' to prevail.

Double Bogey, there are a LOT of Chinook pages to read. We don't want to start a new Chinook argument, I'm sure?????
If YOU wish to reverse the new decisions made on that accident, please start a new thread. Blind cannot see guff is your opinion to which you are entitled, but the last I heard, the crew were exonerated due to a lack of credible evidence. I'm happy with that new decision and I am, frankly, sick to the back teeth of people who slag my dead mates off when they were not there at the time. I suppose you think the Hillsborough report is covering up that those killed actually brought it on themselves and the police didn't really cover it up.

Tandem rotor, I appreciate your implied proximity to the Mull incident but! Sometimes fighting a corner in one direction, in the absence of recorded data, is juxtaposition to the progression of safety. Which I am assuming is the goal we all want. In the Mull case the Radar data was fairly clear. I think you would have to agree they descended, then flew straight and level, until the Mull got in the way.

In the absence of any other evidence we are all free, if we so wish, to decide what we believe is the most likely causes of such events. In doing so our conclusion can lead to a moderation of our own behaviours in an effort to improve our own chances of avoiding an albeit assumed, similar event.

Blame has nothing whatsoever to do with this process. In fact if the Chinook had a WX Radar, or a modern EGPWS surely we would not be having this discussion.

For the RAF to recognise the value of such equipment they have to identify the likely role, its absence may have played in accidents like the Mull.

So Tandemrotor, please do not dismiss me simply because I have chosen a path that serves for a positive tangible benefit rather than the road many others have taken which, for the most part, actually seeks to blame someone or something!

Accidents are just that! Events nobody wanted, planned or in many cases, envisioned would happen. Complex conspiracy theories, whilst entertaining, in my humble view generally serve to distract us from reacting appropriately to what are, in most cases, very simple events.

DB

Double Bogey


Remind us all what the icing clearance was for the Mk.2 Chinook at the time.


Then remind us all what safety altitude would be for military aircraft flying from the Mull to Inverness.


Then remind us all how it gets a bit colder when you're up at those altitudes.


Then write your apology.

Ditto, times five

Satsuma so what are you saying, the could not climb due ice so instead they elected to fly IMC below safety altitude.

Like I said we all draw our own conclusions and Half baked conspiracy theories cut no ice.

Court Martialed for making a Command decision - I do not think so in British Military Aviation! Utter cobblers. Sorry.

I am not in a blame culture. Just a learning culture.

So can we rename this Chinook thread????
Bogey, start a new thread and #### off. Your fabulous knowledge places those pilots IMC on purpose. The Chinook thread discusses a number of INADVERTANT reasons why they might have been there. I really would like the mods to stop this now. Otherwise Bogey, on your next post, could you please PROVE they went IMC BY CHOICE, or, well, you know.................

PS, just to help, it wasn't just an icing clearance they lacked, it was an Instrument Flying clearance that was denied as well. Trust me, I know, I walked out to the aircraft with them that day.

Then learn from some of us who worked under the regime.

Look at the comments made by the Air Rank officer who ran rough-shod over the findings of the BOI for the Mull accident. They could not positively determine the cause(s), and could not therefore put blame on the crew. The Air Rank officer, during the Lord's Inquiry, made a point of trying to belittle the President of the BOI, calling him "A relatively junior officer" (he was in fact of the usual rank/status for the job and now runs the RAF, btw).

Think why the crew were ordered to fly in an un-airworthy aircraft in the first place, despite the request of the captain.....

The introduction of the Mk2 was a compete c**k up; the department responsible for test flying it prior to it's introduction to service ceased flying theirs the day before because they thought it unsafe to continue, even in controlled test flying conditions. The "Mull" crew was made to "fly the flag" for political and /or career saving reasons against the request of the captain and it resulted in the tragic deaths of all on board.

Don't try to tell us there was no pressure from on high in British Military Aviation!

FYI, There was a court martial of an aircraft captain following events in the FI, after a higher command decision was disputed. Without going into great detail, crews could see the enemy air threat and could see that they needed to to fly their aircraft off ship to a dispersed location on shore asap. They were not allowed to, for reasons never made clear. This decision was challenged and one aircraft captain was formally disciplined by CM for doing so. The fact that the majority of the SH force went to the bottom of the sea shortly afterwards, indicated that the request was correct and reasonable.

FNW;


its been a looong week!


SND