Shirley Bassey & Night Flying (UK)
 

Anyone heard anything about this?




Thread title changed:

• The 'engine failure' reported in the press turned out to be a precautionary landing due vis.
• The 'public transport' flight turned out to be a private flight.
• The thread develops from tabloid style to a discussion about UK night flying regs.

Heliport

GlastonBassey
 

Only heard on the news that her chopper had to make an emergency landing due to bad weather and narrowly missed power lines in the process.

Bassey
 

NEWS BASSEY CHEATS DEATH IN HELICOPTER SCARE Music, movie & Entertainment News

"May I please use someone's toilet?" --- I'm not surprised !
Well done the pilot, not the best weather for having to put down in a hurry

anybody know any more about the heli or the charter firm?

sounds likes some exceptional piloting to me....well done that chap! :D

I don't know who the operator or pilot were but would of course, wish them well.

Thank goodness for eyewitness descriptions! "Mechanical Clunking"!!

‘Narrowly missing tree tops and power cables?!

A large shovel full of salt for me please!

First - and most importantly, well done to that pilot for getting down safely.
Second. Why (just going by the radio reporting) did Miss Bassey's management charter a single pilot, single engine, vfr helicopter for this trip? The weather forecasts have been pretty consistent for a good few days that the weather for this weekend was going to be c*ap. It`s not as if she can`t afford a 2 pilot IFR charter to get her to her flight back to Monaco (£15000 dress + £3000 diamond encrusted wellington boots for the Glastonbury mud!).

The journo who wrote the piece referred to above clearly had not read the SOPs for such incidents - it's normal to include "narrowly missed school/hospital/old folks' home".

Clearly an experienced RW engineer. Non-engineers would have said "sounded like it was going to crash"

Agree with 902Jon - the marginal cost of a twin IFR is not much compared to the risk of a diversion or worse.

BBC NEWS | UK | England | Bad weather grounds Dame Shirley
Hardly an engine failure?

Pilot`s comments
 

If, as the press report says, the pilot was terrified because the mist was so bad he could not see where he was going, why was he flying a single engined VFR machine? Sounds like an investigation by the CAA would be in order. However, we all know that they will be too busy scouring through some innocent operator`s duty hours records or checking tech log pages for crossed t`s and dotted i`s.

Pilot:-

"That was terrifying. I was losing power and the mist was so thick I couldn't see where I was going. I've got a special passenger. We had an almighty let off. Thank God."

Sounds like press-onitis to me.:hmm:

I live fairly close by and know the area very well. Collingwood school is at the most 200 yards from Penny Hill Park Hotel. If it wasnt a mechanaical failure/autoroatation land asap incident bad visibility seems likely;

Coming from the west (along the A30) past Blackbushe overhead Camberley Collingwood Scholl is on top of the highest point locally ( the well known Bagshot mast is just behind the school) and with Sundays awful weather the top of the hill could easily have been very close to the cluodbase and a prudent pikot may have not known and not risked the fact that the last 200 yards or so were down hill and if he could not see beyond the hill then decided to land ona nice big field

So much for the 'Journo SOP's' in this case because the pilot actually headed for a school. And it is huge field you could land a twin otter in there not just a helicopter.

A non event other than for our local paper if it waasnt for Ms B

I saw her stepping off a brown/dark red colured "MD" type chopper at Glasto over the weekend, so I presume she flew back on it???

Very suprised to see her in that - thought she'd be in a Twin Squirrel, A109 or similar. It was certianly a big step down for him from the cabin to the ground in that dree and those wellies.

Firstly, well done to the pilot for getting the aircraft down safely, but it raises several serious questions. Regardless of whether it was a single or twin engine machine, the bottom line is it would appear the weather was way out of minima. These conditions were no surprise given the recent prolonged rain and humidity - he didn't just fly into this from clear weather. Having an IR would have been of no help flying into a private site such as Pennyhill Park (or even Battersea Heliport). An IR does not give you Superman laser vision. If he did have an IR, however, then given the adverse weather, why not fly an ILS approach into Farnborough, which would have been a far more prudent decision, even prior to the 'engine failure'? One can't help but feel that this was an [inexperienced] pilot whose judgement was marred by the commercial pressure of carrying such a huge celebrity. With the greatest of respect to the great Dame, her soul is worth no more than any other fare paying passenger or, indeed the pilot's own. Had this been a normal Joe Bloggs charter, would they have made the same decision to go ahead with the flight? Also begs the question, why he overflew/flew close to 2 airports; i.e. Farnborough & Blackbush? Again, I say well done to the pilot, but this could so easily have become yet another statistic. Engine failure aside, this was no night for flying into private sites.

Nothing wrong with the helicopter, it was flown back to its home today. The pilot / owner put down due to poor vis. Before anyone asks it was not me or any of my machines. Just happen to know who it was etc

"Nothing wrong with the helicopter, it was flown back to its home today."
 

Funny old thing that!

"the mechanical clunking" noise heard was obviously the sound of his "rear end" hitting the floor when he realised he'd f***ed up!

Ooops :uhoh:

I used to work for the largest onshore operator of twins in the UK (they said it, not me) mostly doing AA and some police. All our AA pilots were sp IR and the aircraft was very well set up for sp ifr, before that I spent 10 years flying heavy twins on SAR.

I still find it incredible that so many people fly quite large, in relative terms, distances in non-ifr aircraft, in often poor weather. Don't even get me started on the long distance "night VFR" public transport issue which has tragically resulted in quite a number of deaths over recent years. This whole area needs serious review, or are we just prepared to let people, under severe commercial pressure, keep killing themselves and others. We live in a country with weather that can at best be described as variable, if you go inadvertant imc in an aircraft not equipped for it and/or you are not trained for it, the time to loss of control is shockingly small. At that point your survival chances are also shockingly small. Thank God this incident didn't reach that stage.

If I seem a little passionate about this, it is because I have seen the results of loss of control in these conditions, it is not nice and the additional human misery it causes to the near and dear of those involved is awful. I am afraid though that incidents and accidents will continue to occur until sensible enforcement of the rules makes people take notice, and also until the long distance night vfr farce is ended, night vfr belongs in the visual circuit.

Rant off, sorry

Unbelievable........!!
 

and several other similar comments.......

I find it incredulous to believe that anybody could compliment the pilot for getting down safely in this particular situation. Let's face it - he was bloody lucky to get down in one piece and should never have been up there in the first place with the weather as it was.
Although plodpilot was amongst those praising the pilot for getting down safely, I think his other comments were more correct in that too many pilots allow themselves to make erroneous decisions when there is a VIP passenger. Dame Shirley has a history of being very pushy, although any further thoughts here would be total supposition.

Aren't we all taking this a little bit too seriously?

This is only a report that was in one of the Red Tops after all. They wouldn't print a story unless they add the usual 'narrowly avoiding' lines.

Do we really think that the pilot got out the aircraft and said what was quoted? I don't.

Calm down chaps, let's wait and see what the industry says before we start ranting about life and death.

Like I say - take it with a pinch of salt. (if only for the time being)

XD