MD 600 down near Jena, Germany
 

In the eastern region of Germany a MD 600 crashed on Thursday 28th of December. The Copter was chartered by a local grocery store and supposed to wipe snow of the store's roof with it's downwash. Witnesses report a loud noise only seconds after takeoff and smoke coming out of the turbine. The chopper fell down from approximately 30m. Pilot and Co suffer from major injuries, an employe of the store suffers only minor injuries.

Winterchaos nimmt kein Ende: Klirrkälte und Neuschnee in Deutschland - News - Bild.de

http://www.dtoday.de/cms_media/modul...isserstedt.JPG

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"You shop, we drop" isn't supposed to mean that......

Hope the injured folks recover fully and speedily.

Hope they had the snow deflectors on, and had made sure the roof was clear of snow before liftoff..

No snow deflector on the 600. Long fairing forward of the rotor mast and the air inlet is on top and sides of the fairing, aft of the main rotor head.

How effective is the aerial snowplough technique? Presumably used to remove loose snow that could fall and hit shoppers?




Mickjoebill

Snow clearing
 

The helicopter involved is D-HHWR RN055 operated by Sky Heli

Many buildings with a flat roof are not constructed to bear a lot of snow.

With heavy snowfall they tend to collapse.

Building regulations are not complied with.

How do they go about this? Do they approach carefully from the side or drop vertically slowly from above. Would either technique not result in additional pressure on the roof.
Whats wrong with a couple of lightweights with shovels?

sounds more like a publicity stunt thst went wrong !

Generally not a good idea to climb on a roof that's already creaking under a big load of snow, no matter how light you are.

How about a cherry picker then?

Clearing snow off a shop roof in what is presumably a built-up area using a single engine helicopter - something doesn't seem right about this arrangement!

YBB

Seems to be quite common in Germany, see video below:

Schneeräumen à la Amerika: Mit dem Hubschrauber - zoom.in - Video - sevenload

(text says you would expect something like this in America, but it's in Zwickau/Germany)

Unless it is very fine powder snow cant see a heli being that effective

This would be classed as illegal low flying in UK.

Shy,

Hardly a surprise...
Now, what isn't illegal in the UK then? :E

Happy New year, and safe flying!

Folks do like to criticise the UK flying rules and regs and some try to use them as a way of jibing at those who must work under them.

For the record, I'm also highly frustrated by them at times. Not least the cost and time factor in getting exemptions or for permissions to carry out a particular flying task. Especially as I was brought up on the far less restrictive military low flying rules.

But it would be difficult to disagree that this accident gives credence to the UK's "500 foot rule".

An aircraft destroyed and three people injured. Looking at the photos, all of them are very lucky not to have been killed.

So ... perhaps a multiengine helicopter would do a better job? :E

The merits of heli-snow-blowing aside, does anyone know the flight profile ie. what happened that resulted in the bird sitting broken on the road?

PPRuNe-dudes must have seen this a hundred times but, for those who haven't and seeing as we're on 600's - the classic 'hard landing' by a US Border Patrol ship:



HM

Not only the UK 500ft rule but the ICAO 500ft SARP - I'm not sure that any State files a difference.

However, this is Aerial Work which might be permitted in any State if a risk assessment had been carried out.

To state the blindingly obvious, a risk assessment would have this as a 'reasonably probable' outcome on the basis that most engines have a likelihood of failure of 1:100,000 flight hours. It might also be difficult to justify deliberately being in the HV curve with more than one occupant?

No, a twin would be twice as dangerous with a probability of failure of 2:100,000 and a similar outcome (unless it had OEI HOGE).

Jim

In Switzerland it's not uncommon to blow the snow out of trees with Helicopters, to avoid fallen trees blocking roads or somebody getting hit by a tree. A friend of mine was almost hit in her car by a falling tree in 2008. The car behind her drove right into it.

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