Emergency landing on rooftop
 

Yesterday a AS350 made an emergency landing on the roof of the VW factory in Hannover/Germany. They had engine problems during ext-load operations.

Hubschrauber in Hannover abgestürzt Fotostrecken Hannover Hannover / HAZ - Hannoversche Allgemeine

skadi

http://www.haz.de/var/storage/images...imagelarge.jpg

http://www.haz.de/var/storage/images...imagelarge.jpg

http://www.haz.de/var/storage/images...imagelarge.jpg

impressive emergency 'landing'! & lucky the roof took the weight. I guess that will be a challenging recovery job though.

The only way to get it down is by another helicopter, so is the planning. A crane could not be used.

skadi

I must say that I have to pay respect to the pilot who had the imagination to park the aircraft the way he did. And he walked away from it. What more does one want? That is one unusual parking space.:ok:

Very lucky that it did not go through the roof - it does not look like it's very strong. I think this shows that the pilot must have done a very good job of arresting the rate of descent for the landing.

It's interesting to note that the rotor RPM must have been very low (as you would expect) when the blades contacted the building - there is comparatively little damage to them.

I hope the pilot bought a lotto ticket that night!

OH

As you can see on the pics, the load ( 800kg ) is still attached to the helicopter and maybe that this fact slowed down the forward motion on the "slope" to give more time to bring down the RRPM?

skadi

I'm utterly amazed that they did not go through that roof! :eek:

A good friend of mine had an engine failure at low level/airspeed in a 350 many years ago whilst load lifting. He too, did not get the load off before impact and it had the reverse role to what you suggest happened on this occasion (although i'm not saying you are incorrect) - the load hit the ground and acted like an anchor stopping all the horizontal movement and catapulting the helicopter vertically into the ground very hard.

Were they quite close to the roof when it happened do you know?

incredible escape!

Skadi

Just read your post again properly - sorry.

You were asserting that the horizontal motion was stopped by the load - i think you are quite correct that this could have happened.

apologies
OH

Roofus - I'm afraid you have competition ;)

Right. But those aren't point loads.

who said you couldn't land a squirrel on a 45 deg down slope.....???

Did the same with an S-58
 

One tire punched a hole in the roof,all 7600+ lbs on a flimsy metal roof. Nice landing,

Must have hit "fairly" hard to bend the tail or was it glanced by the blades?


Mickjoebill

Yeahh I thought the limit was 6° :ok:

Kudos to the pilot for a good outcome from a very nasty "event". :ok:

The only question I have is, surely this ought not to have been a task for a single-engined helo? Anyone tasking this must, when doing even a rudimentary risk assessment, have realised that a twin engined aircraft would have been the sensible option given the terrain and obsticales.....

MB

An AS355NP cannot sling the load an AS350B2 can with two engines let alone one, and there's twice the chance of an engine failure!

I agree on the kudos to the pilot: I suspect he had the collective well under his armpit when he 'arrived', and a slightly elevated pulse rate when the pitot came to rest against the roofing. And as for the load not even cracking the glass :eek: :p

Being JAA land the issue of twin accountability seems to be a bit fuzzy, and we have a similar issue at times here in Oz. I won quite a few lifting jobs because I had a BK117: not due to CASA Regs but the good old Elfin Safety in the form of our WorkSafe Victoria and their oversight of JSA (Job Safety Analysis). Based on the premise that we would jettison the load over a safe area thus giving SE flyaway capability, I guess the rooftop in this example would have required a split second timing to dump the load!

Then again, with one engine still operating a twin should have hover capability once the load hits the roof? At which stage, if not done already, the load can be pickled off and a SE recovery made? Just thinking out loud, but something which is worth considering.

Concur with John E - whilst there might be twice the chance of engine failure, there's a significantly higher chance of flyaway following a SINGLE engine failure, which is what we're really talking about. I can't remember ever reading or hearing about a double concurrent turbine engine failure - & before someone finds one, I mean not caused by severe icing or fuel starvation, neither of which would likely happen with this sort of operation, I'd suggest.

All in all, hats off to the pilot, for a skillful &/or lucky outcome. It's always heartening to see a positive outcome to what could, so easily, have been otherwise. :ok:

Doesn't any one know what actually happened here yet ???
The guys in Germany must have heard something........

According to various German news web sites, rumor #1 is engine failure while they wanted to set down the load on the roof (load consists of new fume outlets). According to the firefighters on site, rumor #2 is that the engine failure happened because they were low on fuel. Apparently the fire fighters wanted to pump the remaining fuel to avoid a fire, but there was no more fuel left in the tank.

Maybe they stuck the hose in the wrong hole, or maybe there was a fuel leak due to the post-"landing" damage, or maybe they are just all full of sh*t.