http://www.hl-live.de/aktuell/bilder/heli-12-2012.jpg

Tailbooms tend to come off the Squirrel fairly easily in autorotations.

Remember the KCAL Squirrel at Van Nuys a year or so ago?

http://media.trb.com/media/photo/2010-11/57583568.jpg

DANGER !!! I would NOT follow the advice about the pic jumping out over water !!!!! It MAY have been done in special circumstances ..??
Is it just me ... But A). The only scenario of having to hover and drop off pax would be Main Xnsn chip ,....and even then I would carry on taxiing towards land rather than get wet B) knowing you are within min of running out of fuel .... Maybe but would prob still do same as A but with doors open .
What I would never ever do is try to climb out of the helicopter in flight as Pic !!
There would be a real danger of the aircraft coming down on top of you , or on top of your pax a few metres away . ( if they are much further away then there is the extra danger of you being split up ). To me it sounds daft when there are virtually no known successful ones done and masses of successful ditchings !!!!
Just let it settle in with minimum rrpm , shut off fuel and apply rotor brake sounds much safer to me :ugh:
Ps also a very controlled landing in many cases can give you something to sit on which floats ....that is the airframe which has not been crunched when it flips over with nobody at the controls ...... Think about it ......As always happy to learn from an expert .

To be honest Anthony, I don't think anyone saw it.... I know I didn't

I thought the tailboom was still attached until RVDT mentioned it. (Hence re-posting the photo). You can in fact see it (in the dark) in the foreground.

Regarding ditching I was going to say that once the blades contact the water it usually takes less than 5 seconds for even the most vigorous rpm to be stopped (from what I have seen) and just as I was thinking about that HeliHenri (like Zebedee) appeared with this thread: http://www.pprune.org/rotorheads/504...opacabana.html

So, as long as pax are briefed on getting out of un upturned fuselage (your basic HUET training) they shouldn't really have to worry about blades.

I was taught that if you had to plow in and couldn't keep the aircraft upright you should lean the American helicopters to the right (to rip the transmission backwards away from the cabin) and the opposite for the Froggie aircraft. Is this still taught?

With all the ongoing AS350 incidents my poor B407 vs AS350B3 study is taking a battering - in my mind at least! :sad:

The Study should not take long....as given a choice of a 407 and 350....i know easily which one I would choose and do so on cost, cost of operation, and resale value....when you add Customer Support...it becomes a no brainer!

You are right SAS but - as mentioned before, the client prefers the cabin layout of the 350 and is in an area with little 407 support but with good 350 support (as in service centres).

At the end of the day I must present a factual report and that's what I'm trying to achieve. The 350 (series) has far more flight time than the 407 - unless you throw the 206 pedigree behind it.

After I present the facts it will be the client who decides but yes, he has asked for a recommendation at the end of the study but I still don't have all the facts together (yet) but I soon will have. At least enough for this exercise.

350 water landing video
 

Interresting to see that video of the 350 going into the water...
The tail rotor kept spinning a little while after it hit the water and did not shred apart like we thought.
Glad to see it floated for a few seconds which would give one a little time to undo seat bealts and open doors to get out.

p.s. as with other fatal crashes discussed on PPRUNE, this has turned into a very interresting CRM discussion, which we can all learn from, irrelevant of the outcome of the cause of the crash.
In this case we will never know what the reasoning behind the flight over the water, but I'm sure lots of us will think twice about it from now on.

Maybe something like this: http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/recletter...10-129-130.pdf

Either like in this accident, or fuel-lever accidentally been pulled to Idle Stop by a strap or similar...

Lots of possibilities I'm affraid...

Crab,

I was away for a week, that´s why I can only now answer.

Prolonged in this case means within autorotative range.
If you fly along the coast, I´d not be further out than a hundred meters or so, to make sure that at least someone sees you going down. Swimming 100 m in the Baltic during winter in your normal clothes is a no go, but again, flying in itself is dangerous...

Having done my initial helicopter training @ DHFS, we were drilled not to fly over lakes, wooded areas and the like.
Annoying at times, but saving lives and probably lessons learnt the hard way.

Tom

The preliminary report of the german accident investigation authority is published ( only in german ):

http://www.bfu-web.de/DE/Publikation...ublicationFile

No signs of hydraulic or engine problems, but the T/R driveshaft was damaged/ interrupted at the fwd flexcoupling just aft of the engine. The rest incl. the T/R itself was undamaged, even the soot on the blades was not washed away, which could lead to the conclusion, that the blades were not turning properly on impact. Fuel lever was in flightposition.
Also no life vests and no survival suits were found on board.

skadi

Thank you for the link

@skadi

Does the report say anything about the radio transmissions during the emergency? My german is very rusty.

Tom

@ TomAndreas-NOR
The last transmission was hardly readable, several people including specialists of the university in Braunschweig tried to understand what the pilot said at last, but they came to different solutions:
hope we have a great xxx,
xxx xxx we are going stuck,
xxx xxx we are going south
I hope we have a break shaft
We are going down

skadi

Thank you Skadi! Did it say how long it took for SAR-efforts to commence?

My understanding of German is far from perfect but good enough to understand the contents of this report.

I have checked every source available to me to find out if this type of tail rotor failure has happened before and I can't find any. If this has been a known problemarea surely Eurocopter would have issued a service bulletin, or an information letter at least, but I have found nothing.

I have informed all of our employees of the findings in this report and encouraged them to discuss it and make a "what to do" plan if it happens to them.

My experience in aviation which is +30 years has told me that there is no single failure that lead to an accident. Reading the report there are several factors that makes me believe that the pilot is way out of his "comfort zone".

Looking forward to the final report that hopefully will tell me why the "short shaft" failed.

The final report was just published, no T/R shaft failure, the engine was the problem:

http://www.bfu-web.de/EN/Publication...ublicationFile

skadi

Cheers for the link, we're a couple guys who have been waiting almost 2 years to know what happened that day. Actually many of us have flown that very route from Lübeck to Sweden (with the Romanian operator which was considered as friend by most), but it was in a B1 or B2 with floats and survival gear (life raft and suits).

Large bodies of water are regularly crossed on those survey missions and one does wonder why a more powerful helicopter with floats wasn't used (obviously the price but this event has cost a lot more than money, leaving a least one widow and two orphants).

Does anybody what helicopter is being used today?