Heli 'collides with gas rig' 11-Mar-08
 

Anyone seen this? Luckily it seems there were no injuries and the damage confined to the aircraft's TR.

BBC Norfolk 11-Mar-2008

Shortly after the autorotation from 12000ft and as the pilot was coming out of the seventh barrel roll he smashed straight into the crane...........

or could it be that the last 2 inches of the tail fairing came into contact with the crane railings!! No one injured except a very embarassed pilot!

Sticking your tail into cast iron is more than an embarrassment.....it was just inches shy of a disaster!:uhoh:

Is it not part of the course being inches from disaster flying to the rigs after all they ain't big exactly?

SASless - my thoughts exactly. I'm sure the families of the Brent Spar accident wish that all that had happened was flippant remarks on a bulletin board, rather than the tragedy that actually resulted.

Wasn't this the cause for poor old Flingwing207's untimely demise?

Some manufacturers are actively looking into TR proximity warning systems, in recognition of the very real accident rate that this threat results in.

''John Sewell, a Perenco spokesman, said a helicopter suffered minor damage when its tail rotor collided with a crane.''


Erm not actually true, the tail 'section' collided with a crane :(
Another good reason to choose a 'fenestron' on your next chopper :)

What type was involved ? Being CHC I'd imagine a 76 ?

NST

With a fenestron tail I'd imagine not a 76 :uhoh:

365 I believe

Ah thought it meant a good reason to have a fenestron so your tail wouldn't hit, 365 it could well be :ok:

NST

'Ah thought it meant a good reason to have a fenestron so your tail wouldn't hit, 365 it could well be'

You are correct :)

Was it actually at night ?? Or a slightly misjudged daylight approach

Sasless and 212man,

You would make good journalists! Ignore the facts and blow everything out of proportion.

To state inches away from disaster and to compare the brent disaster is niaivity beyond belief.

There was a scrape of a tail fairing, 2 feet clear of the enclosed fenestron. Absolutely no danger to anyone on board. Also, it happened, at the maximum, 3 seconds prior to an uneventful landing!

The Eastern daily Press are stating this as the most significant occurence since the very sad S76 crash 6 years ago. Hardly in the same category!

A few good summaries here which is why i gave a tounge in cheek aspect to the build up to the incident!

Lots of folk like to over dramatise!

"365 pilots getting too much time off!!!"

FINALLY a comment I totally agree with !!!!!!

Just needs the 'overpaid' comment to make it puuurfect,,lol

( only kiddin ) ;)

Steves,

Now there's a good chap.....bounce into yer Chief Pilot's office and pass on what you think about this little bitty doesn't amount to nothing event.

After you get the bleeding stopped.....tell us what you think then eh, mate!

Now if folks had been doing the ol' there but the grace of the almighty go I remarks, you would be exactly right. That ain't what happened as I see it.

The playpen I hang out in....one does not stick yer tail rotor....or any other part of the boss's machine into things that leave dings, dents, scratches, or slag heaps. If you do....you have diddled the pooch in public....which is not good for company-client relationships.

Lets hear how it came to be the crane got into the way.....and see if there is a way to learn from this so it might not happen again.

I'm with SASless on this - you hit your tail into something, anything, and it is a big deal. Most pilots here would automatically get sacked. You guys better not drink in any of the bars here and complain you should have had a tailcamera to see the obstacle, you'll be laughed out of town.

So Stevie says it is only a little scrape of paint on a fairing, and Helimutt says the photos are "boring". So I guess they just swapped passengers and flew it back to base did they? Where is the aircraft now?

Let's have a look at those "boring" pictures.....

Ditto

Results may be minor but that doesn't mean its a minor event

Steve mc -wow! Did you mean to write that? Are you actually a pilot if, so were you 'The Pilot'? :eek: Pretty sure the pax & client won't see it your way, nor the bosses at CHC. Hopefully lessons are learnt and the repeats are just as lucky (when they happen again as sadly will be the case one day).

Poor old XD...get well soon and hope to hear you flying again soon....enjoy the boat ride home!!!:)

Hehehehe, the above comment made me smile, :)

Nice to know somebody still loves the old bugger !

Me loving XD? Nah....just enjoy controlling her from the lem-inde-lem-inde-tha-lem-inde-lem-inde-lem.....the joys!!!! The drivers must get sick of calling us up!!!!!:)

Helimutt,

"Photos not for public consumption", er why not?

"Lucky it was an AS365 instead of an S76": we call that "Dutch Logic" with no offense meant to the Dutch. Maybe if you want to bounce the tail off objects then it is better to have an intermediate gear box, and a higher tail-rotor. Not only that, but this obstacle of proximity was well known! You can't even claim ignorance.

From a claimed "scratch on the fairing" to "waiting to hoist it onto a boat for the ride home". Some scratch.

"Lessons will be learned" hmm, where to start....

You North Sea guys crack me up.

Sorry, must having been having a senior moment when I wrote my last post, coupled with a large dose of naivety. Thanks for putting me back on the straight and narrow. I'd obviously forgotten what an accepted practice it is to stick your tail into solid objects during the last few moments of a landing offshore. I guess knowing the crane is an obstacle just goes to confirm what a standard practice this must be these days.

I must be getting old as I find myself saying "it was never like that in my day" :ugh::ugh::ugh:

(Just to confirm: I'm not having a go at the pilot - I'm having a go at those who believe it's a non-event, Dauphin or not!)

Now hang on a mo' 212man.....famous intercom comment heard in Eket one night.....BRRRRRRRRRPPPPPH! (A very loud and long expensive metallic grinding sound from the aft end of the aircraft heard) followed by...... " Errrrr...... Nigel, I think that was the wind sock!"

Thus it was the Engineer staff got to rebuild a 212 on top of one of the platforms as a change of pace from their normal daily chores.

SASLESS

That was definitely not me!!:ok:

SAS, I wasn't saying it didn't happen "in my day", I was saying it was never viewed as being a minor incident, hardly worthy of note!

Lessons will be learned...
.... will they be shared too?

Indeed you are correct 212man. As I recall the story....the non-handling pilot ultimately got the sack (for other well deserved reasons not related to the incident) and the handling pilot remained the Chief Pilot.

Then there was the young North Sea pilot who was in country to obtain his "command time" who went out on an air test with an engineer....cut down a set of powerlines while low leveling...put the engineer into hospital and wrote off a 212. He found himself transferred to Trinidad to finish his "command time".

I guess the Managing Director in Nigeria at that time had empathy for those who had blade strikes.....as he had a few himself. (I have a lovely photograph of a Bristow Safety Poster...remember the one that showed a cartoonish Wessex with lots of hard hats and papers being ingested....this particular poster had been edited to say "Please don't feed our birds trees!")

But in general....I agree....blade strikes of any kind were considered less than professional. The outcomes had much different endings depending upon one's position on the Totem Pole.

I'm voting Malabo should lead the campaign for common sense (shortened to CDF) !

So that's why we should all fly fenestron machines??
 

Thanks guys, I've learned so much from this thread! It seems that we should all be flying helis with Fenestrons so that we can park them in tighter spots!!

It's almost unbelievable that anybody on Rotorheads could play down the fact that this helicopter actually contacted anything during the landing on a rig. We can all get it wrong, and for most of us Lady Luck has been on our side, but to pass this situation off as "a non-event" ................ words fail me!

Unfortunately, the safety culture in some organisations is such that until a tragedy occurs, problems are not taken seriously.

In this event, it sounds that there, but the grace of god, could have been a serious accident with multiple fatalities. Had that occurred, there would have been a full AAIB investigation and, no doubt, good recommendations made and actions taken to reduce the risk of a similar occurrence happening again.

Because luck was on their side, I suspect the investigation will be much lower key, the simple "pilot error" inference will be assumed and not a lot will change.

In my view, any incident which COULD have resulted in a serious accident should be investigated in the same manner as if a serious accident HAD occurred.

How many times do you see in the CAA Safety Digests statements like "Acceptable risk assuming the occurrence rate remains low" at the bottom of a report which COULD have turned out very nasty under slightly different circumstances and only LUCK has prevented it.

Roundwego,

I totally agree with you - this was not a trivial event and all the facts should be aired as soon as possible.

We should use all such experiences to ensure that we learn the lessons and avoid similar occurences in the future.

So that the circumstances can be fully understood, there should be an assurance that no blame will be attributed - always providing of course that the pilots are willing to provide a complete picture.

Jim

Reading back over the thread....it would appear the consensus is the event in question was not a minor event....the outcome was fortuitous...and the pilot community can/should learn from what happened.

I saw not a single finger being pointed at the pilot involved in the event but a whole lot of concern that some were of the mindset this was no big deal.

Each of us knows the dangers of landing to decks as we do it all the time. We also know that the chances of having a blade strike are real.

The key is in admitting to one's self, the importance of maintaining a positive safety culture both by management and by crew and engineers.

A current thread notes an engineering failure that resulted in the death of a pilot flying an R-22, and this thread talks of an incident that could very easily have resulted in the loss of an aircraft and the people inside the aircraft.

Our own personal interests are served if we use both to learn from and hopefully prevent something similar from happening again.

helimutt: shame on you! You do not need to "smash into a crane" (is that meant to simulate journo-speak or something?) to then "spin wildly out of control and fall over the side". I made mention in my first post to the BIH S-61 and the Brent Spar. No one suggested they "smashed into the crane" but they sure as hell span wildly and fell off the edge - read the AAIB report and see how much of a non-event you consider tail rotor to crane contact is.

I'm with T4 (et al) on this ; I'm just aghast that any right minded professional offshore pilot considers it a non-event (or minor event) to stick your tail into a crane!

Wee more than a few scratches and dents.....it does say something for a Fenstron tail.

Someone has to say it:

It'll buff out :p

On a more serious note, the second photo shows quite a chafe mark from the fenestron tips, so there must have been quite a flexing of the tail structure. Also, I wonder what position the crane was at the time: it looks well parked in the last photo?

Please, please tell me they were landing on the helideck and not trying to re-position .......

tistisnot

They weren't - read the initial news report before making irrelevant posts - 5 pax on board!

332M