Helicopter Crash in Andorra Kills 4, Injures 1
 

15-Jun-11 Canillo, Andorra (4F) | Helihub - the Helicopter Industry Data Source

witness reports the sling snagged in a tree.

Company Heliand

R.I.P. :(

Death toll increases
 

Very sadly the latest reports locally speak of 5 dead and 1 seriously injured.

The passengers were apparently being flown to do maintence work on mountain refuges in the area.

RIP my friend

A fellow who went by the handle 170' last I heard worked in Andorra, I hope he is safely in Paris.

As for the rest, my condolences.

...
 

B Stuff...
Not me but thanks...
I have no info at the moment....
Best....170'

Diari d'Andorra - Cinc morts i un ferit molt greu en l'accident d'un helicòpter d'Heliand a l'estany de Juclà

http://www.diariandorra.ad/media/K2/...1/06/13057.jpg

Latest press reports...
 

Confirm the ownership of the helicopter as earlier and imply it is an Andorran company; though there seems to be a parallel company with a similar/ near identical name across the Andorran border in Catalonia.

The press speak of a dual-investigation due to the machine being French built but Spanish registered. [Does Andorra have a functioning Civil Aviation Authority or similar, I wonder ?]

A local paper "El Periodic de Andorra" describes the machine as the oldest in the company fleet and calls it an "Écureill".

The sling snagging the trees seems to be the dominant theory (though early reports did discuss other scenarios.)

Age of helicopter
 

The same paper, Periodic de Andorra, this morning appears to contradict its earlier report on the age of the machine:

El vehicle havia estat fabricat a França i matriculat a Espanya. Va ser estrenat a Andorra el 4 de novembre de l'any passat. És a dir, només tenia set mesos i per tant, havia passat tots els controls pertinents de seguretat.

It was "estrenat" i.e. first used/ given a public outing in Andorra on 4th November (2010?) and had all its papers in order.

My command of Catalan is not sufficiently good to tell whether the report means it was a brand new craft on 4th Nov, though the paper does say "it was 7 months old" which seems to resolve my doubts; though implicitly contradicting yesterday´s reports. (Not I accept if the whole fleet was 7 months old or less.)

Eye witness reports quoted add to the theory of the sling (20m long said one person) snagging.

The claim of "local control of the investigation" undertaken by the Spanish and French aviation authorities is maintained though I, as a non-expert outsider, have my doubts on the reality of this.

Una pregunta concreta: ¿Qué inspecciones y de qué tipo se le realizaron a Heliand?

Rough translation of the article:

Helicopter owned by CAT helicopters, operated by Heliand.
Six people on board -> all seats occupied.
Plus a sling attached, but if I understand it correctly, they forgot to attach the cargo net to the sling. The unloaded sling then went into the tail rotor...

I think there is an undertone in this article that the helicopter actually had lifted some kind of cargo, but it was brought back to base after the crash, pretending it had never been lifted. Could be my lausy Spanish as well...

6 People, fuel (god knows how much), external load. It was a B3 after all, but to me it looks a bit too ambitious.

Andorra/ France/ SPAIN ¿ who takes responsibility ?
 

Glad someone else is watching. I think I hinted at some of these issues previously.

Though I have previously quoted from Periodic de Andorra, the rival link to Diari d´ Andorra posted earlier on (above the photo) by someone else seems to be giving much better coverage of the aftermath of this accident.

It´s in Catalan (obviously; the language of Andorra) but you can get the gist I believe.

As I have no intention of getting in a helicopter anywhere ever, still less one outside the EU, the issues might not appear to affect me directly.

But as someone who flies into and out of Catalonia fairly regularly the standard of inspection/ control over safety issues offered by Spanish regulators and their EU big brothers is a concern. A major concern.

To mention only one issue, the game of alphabet-soup i.e. sub-contracting planes from a different operator with an AOC, which might or might not share some element of ownership, and where people rely on the second (or third ! or fourth !!) such entity to "follow the rules" seems worryingly common-place in Spain and has apparently been functioning in this case too.

¿ With consequences which are more than somewhat negative ?

I really hope everything is OK with Jacques and Vincent Lahouille (father and son) they worked for Heliand. :bored: I had a EC135 B1 course in Donauworth Germany together with them in March 2010. I can read the name of Jacques in one of the news paper articles but my cathalan is very bad.

Dragstay - very sorry to report but the local press is naming two deceased Heliand employees as Claude Michel Boulanger and Jacques Lahouille

For info - Catalan translation is readily available at Google Translate - just put the Catalan language http.... web page name in the box, make sure it is showing "From Catalan" and "To (your language)" and hit [enter] and you have the page in your language.

Same article finishes "the sling hanging from the helicopter got hooked on a tree."

This article states "The sources claimed yesterday that it is not advisable to fly with the sling hanging when not in use, but "is moot" if it is illegal."

Other articles from same Andorran website here and here

I believe the helicopter was EC-LHP - see photo here in better times and compare the tail colours with the photo above. Note also Heliand titles. This 350B3 serial number 4916 was registered new in Spain in June 2010. BigFrank - the seven months could be from the November date when it appears to have gone in service with Heliand to this month?

Legality of hook/ (empty) sling and passengers
 

This appears to be important.

The Spanish pilots union SEPLA issued a statement shortly after this crash to say the practice being followed here in Andorran airspace of combining freight in a sling with passengers was illegal in Spain.

Now the machine was Spanish registered, it seems, but operating outwith the EU. ¿Which rules count then?

Is there an autonomous Andorran book of rules ? I guess they have, relatively speaking an awful lot of helicopter movements given their terrain. Has anyone any knowledge of their rule book ?

Finally I think I am right in saying that the sling (and the heavy hook??)had been dumped at the previous landing spot before the accident and the machine was flying with a "free-flowing" cable beneath it whose length I have seen quoted by non-expert eye-witnesses at anything between 12m and 20m, though apparently nobody saw the actual final moments of the craft.

Pfff... :( I'm shocked and sad to find out that Jacques and the other 4 people has died in this crash.
Thanks helihub for the link to google translation.

Latest press reports/ speculation
 

Today they report that

Spanish authorities hope to issue a preliminary report in 2 - 3 weeks.
Pilot was off course
Pilot was in air about 4 minutes
Pilot may have been trying an emergency landing as the exact spot of the crash was the only relatively flat terrain nearby but, as above, was off course for the trip he was apparently making.

Much further speculation about the knowledge the pilot did or did not have of the sling status when he took off as well as repitition of the "fact" that the sling snagged the tree and was the immediate cause of the crash.