Paul McCartney near death experience
 

Not sure if I missed this but can't believe there has been no comments on it and the reporting style :)

Paul McCartney and wife two feet from disaster in helicopter drama: Pilot forced into terrifying climb after brushing tree-tops | Mail Online

HTC

A slightly less dramatic reporting from The Daily Telegraph:

Regardless, I'm intrigued at the accuracy of the radalt that reads two feet off the top of a tree :p

Two feet clearance off the trees? He's getting soft, his previous wife only had one foot.

TQ
If you read the report it says crew 2 !

First mentioned a month ago on this thread - http://www.pprune.org/rotorheads/491343-fayair.html.

I wouldn't wish ill on anyone but if this particular VIP passenger was to have a scare, would it be possible to give him one that would just persuade him to stop singing?

HELP :eek::eek::eek:

My bad. Post deleted. Thanks JimL & Hughes500.

i want to hold your hand
 

any one been in there at night ? is it lit, only saw pic in paper , didnot look like many escape routes , they all walked away! luck or judgment ?? helispeediii

Agreed...and to go home before sundown. :ok:

Probably not, and likely yes. The company for which I worked wasn't interested in SOP's for sites such as this, so once one pilot had pushed his luck it was even more difficult for the next pilot to refuse if he considered similar conditions to be unsafe. Commercial pressure and "satisfying the customer" often ranked far above basic flight safety in operations such as these; perhaps nothing has changed since I had to give it up. A Chief Pilot responsible for flight safety but rewarded according to the profit of the commercial operation ....now how can that be done without a conflict, and why is it allowed by the authority?

Targa top

That's the problem, they clearly did, and it certainly didn't involve abiding to the legal requirements of maintaining VMC below 1000' or even to a vaguely sensible height below that figure! The AAIB report will make spectacular reading, and it will be interesting to see what else comes out. There ought to be plenty of FDR/CVR evidence, although some are saying that this was wiped because the incident wasn't reported as 'promptly' as it could have been!

76 Fan

It was the Ops Director, not the CP. Either way, I don't really see a conflict as its the accountable manager's responsibility to ensure that commercial issues don't reduce flight safety. Then again, with AH's peculiar arrangements, who is the AM?!

Not sure what you mean about having an "SOP" for "sites like this". Surely the ANO and JAR-OPS are clear enough? Or are you suggesting there should be "company minima"?!!!

You may see the "Special Bulletin" here.

Tks TRC.


.

Subject to amendment though..

"This Special Bulletin contains facts which have been determined up to the time of issue. It is published to inform the aviation industry and the public of the general circumstances of accidents and serious incidents and should be regarded as tentative and subject to alteration or correction if additional evidence becomes available."

1. JAR-OPS is after my time.
2. By sites like this, I meant any off airfield site, especially if the aircraft was operated for its owner by company pilots.
3. Chief pilot responsible for flight safety? A direct reply from a Flight Ops Inspector when the question was put to him.

My company didn't have anybody with the grand title of Ops Director. If one person (in my case the Chief Pilot) had responsibility for "getting the job done if at all possible" and "flight safety", surely you can see the conflict of interest? I could give several examples, but not here in public, in print.

I had hoped that things had improved since my day but an occurance such as this would seem, sadly, to show that they have not.

Irrespective of the events leading up to the go-around, I wonder why the number 1 engine/transmission went over the maximum allowed combined torque figure.

My understanding is that the FADEC system should have prevented an overtorque; i.e. the advertised idea is that the pilot pulls the collective and the aircraft should look after its own limits for him. If this didn't happen, why not?

It's a great shame if a pilot makes an honest mistake, the aircraft doesn't work as advertised and so the pilot gets shown the door as the result.

A few reasons, that I would suggest. One is that the FADEC can only react to reasonably collective rates, and a very large and abrupt pull with always cause a transient overtorque until the FADEC 'gets its act together.' Another reason might be that the torque limiting is 'soft' compared to other parameter limiting, so that in attempting to restrict to 120% one FADEC allowed its engine to rise to 121.5%. I've been told from the horse's mouth that the S92 Tq limiting is not particularly 'hard,' and we can see that in practice during training. A further explanation might be that the FADEC was limiting N1 rather than Tq, and therefore as the Nr decayed (if indeed it did) the torque rose.

Was blowaway power entered ? 2 crew and 2 pax in a ++ is about as light as it gets. The PF and the PM would have been awoken by the drooping rotor that's for sure. I also believe, but stand to be corrected, that 10 minutes accumulated 2 min power is allowable before a tear down is required.

From the RFM

Blowaway is an escape logic associated with dual engine limiting that removes the takeoff power limiter in certain cases to provide for extraordinary and unforeseen circumstances where increased power beyond the takeoff power limit is required for continued safe operation. Extraordinary turbulence encountered in the final moments of a landing approach to an oil platform or pilot misjudgment of closure rate upon landing to a confined area can serve as operational examples where increased power beyond the limit could be an important contribution.
The blowaway logic can be latched in either of two ways: a slow to moderate rotor decay rate to 100% Nr or an excessive decay rate of 5% per-second or greater occurring at 104% Nr or less. In both cases rotor droop is occurring because more power is being commanded than the engines can deliver at the takeoff power rating, but in the latter one, the logic is applied sooner to counter the faster rate, presumably related to a more urgent situation. Blowaway is reset over a ten second interval that is initiated when Nr is restored and exceeds 106%.
When the logic is tripped, the dual engine takeoff limit is replaced by the 2-Minute single engine N1 limit or 115% torque whichever occurs first or in combination. Although normally both engines will blowaway, one engine may trip in some cases at the 100% Nr point if the droop rate is slow and enough power is realized from it to arrest droop and increase the rotor speed before the other engine trips. Other than in the colder ambients where 115% torque can be achieved at low N1 values, blowaway may be expected to result in 2-Minute N1 usage, and therefore, time added to the cumulative 2-Minute counters.

Lots of unanswered questions when I read the Special Bulletin. Does anyone know if the AAIB are to do more investigation of the circumstances of the flight (rather than the post-incident download and analysis which is what they seem to have concentrated on so far)?

It would be interesting to know whether the site was lit.

Apart from a thankfully different outcome at the very end, this incident feels uncomfortably like the G-BYPA AS355 accident back in 2007.

Air Accidents Investigation: AS355F2 Twin Squirrel, G-BYPA

We still don't seem to be learning from our history.