jayteeto

Yes that's what I was expecting. About 300 hrs per year. So in four years or more, I would have expected about twice as many hours as he seems to have.

If he wasn't flying another type (I presume he was?) then averaging 7-8 hours per month over a four year period, seems a little low?

Not that low

DAPT,

I challenged the content of the post.....and did not attack the poster personally.

There is a real difference.

I read his post to mean he thinks a former Chinook Pilot who was flying the 135 that night had not been able to make the reversion from flying a Chinook to a smaller Single Rotor Helicopter, and thus somehow contributed to the crash.

In my view there is no other way to read it.

Just because one makes a Post here....does not in anyway mean the content will not be challenged and sometimes in a rather blunt way. The second line of the quote of mine says that.

I strongly disagree with what Standard Overhaul had to say, both in content and apparent intent....and I welcome his response justifying or explaining what he said. I am quite confident he cannot provide any evidence to show the return to Single Rotor flying is difficult.

He is right to the degree that Autorotations in a Chinook are different than those in a Single Rotor Helicopter....but then they are different between types as well. One example would be doing them in a Huey or Jet Ranger or in a Hughes 500 or EC-350....but in the final analysis the concept is the same for every helicopter.



Tandem.....now Lad....we know the Truth. Chinook Pilots are all Superb Pilots and some Single Rotor Pilots are Superb.....those who move to the "Dark Side" as we did.;)

Interesting thoughts about the difficulty of tandem v single rotor but I'm not sure that it's entirely relevant here. Dave probably had around 4000 hours Chinook and as an instructor would have demonstrated autorotation many times. Chinny autos can be quite exciting given the inertia in the blades - when the Nr starts to rise/fall you have to be quick to control it so auto in a single rotor would not present too many problems for him.
Many years ago I'd have considered the PIC's recent hours low but I think once you reach 5000+ hours much of what you do is so ingrained that a few hours a month are all you need to keep on top of your game. I accept that Dave found himself in a highly unusual situation...at night as well, but I can't believe for a moment that he would have panicked or made a false control input. He would have followed his training and his instincts and flown the helicopter in such a manner to optimise his chances of survival. Knowing the skill he had at his disposal I'm confident in saying that if he could not have got away with it then it is unlikely that the incident was survivable.

Tandemrotor, those hours seem to match up.
Given a bit of leave, those 7/28/90 day totals drop off nicely.

Is a 902 pilot a tandem jockey?
:p

DAPT,

Care to give us some idea of your background in Helicopter flying, licenses, hours, types, kind of flying you have done? Generalities would be fine.

No need for Accident Investigation team nor further discussion here. The Sunday Times - front page, no less - has solved the mystery.

'Pilot error' says the headline. Hmmm.

SY

Pilot error theory in Glasgow pub crash | The Sunday Times

I hope they come to eat their words when, as I believe, it is shown that his actions prevented the deaths of many more !!

Though I'd be willing to bet most of their "sources" were discussions on here and other forums!

So what caused the engines out?
 

I think I've read every post in this thread, and I haven't seen a plausible explanation of how an EC135, with 95 litres of fuel on board, can have both engines quit.

If I've missed it, can someone point me to the relevant post?

Sunday Times
 

It seems that the Sunday Times is embracing the definition of "Theory" favored by the wider Murdoch empire - not the normal "self-consistent and empirically supported explanation", but the non-football version of the acronym WAG.

It's also somewhat embarrassing to see the term "pilot error" in use in a supposedly reputable newspaper at the end of 2013. Even if there turns out to have been fault on the pilot's part, errors don't just happen spontaneously - they have causes. It's a completely unhelpful term.

I guess it's a shame that the dead probably can't sue for defamation.
Perhaps this might be a case for Scottish law to deviate from English?

They call it a "violent crash".. Havent seen many violent crashes then..

The helicopter is so intact, that the use of the term "violent crash" just seems inapropriate.

There was a discussion between someone in here, that pilots coming from heavy metal to medium or light, may run into trouble. I know this is true for fixed wing in many ways. If you fly a 767 for a living, and havent touched anything as small as a c172 for years, and suddenly one day goes to do so, thats taking a risk.

How do I know?

My local flying club has experienced it first hand. Pro fixed wing guys with thousands of hours on heavy metal, come to do a lap in the c172 for the first time in many years and makes a hard landing.. hard enough for a trip to the workshop..

But for RW-pilots: No

The difference between heavy metal 76/74 and a puny C172 is waaaay bigger
than a chinny vs a EC135. Besides, an auto is an auto. Id say its a non-issue.

Feel so sorry for colleguaes and family left behind..

Rose land, I totally agree but I would suggest that the engines were chopped rather than quit. However, that doesn't get away from the most mysterious of mysteries in this incident ....

"Preliminary examination showed that all main rotor blades were attached at the time of the impact but that neither the main rotor nor the fenestron tail rotor were rotating."

Of all the videos I've trawled through recently, all the various to the ground autos completed in the past, all the times I've seen someone pull max pitch to slow the blades down that little bit quicker and how I've watched the blades sail past when shutting down with the assistance of the rotor brake .... this blades not rotating really puzzles me.

Unless it all just happened to happen all just in time to impact upright as it did. I really wonder how close they were to pulling it off :(

If your car had 95 litres of fuel in cans in the boot, how many miles would you travel? It all depends where the fuel was. None of us know that. If sids theory is true, the position of controls/switches will confirm. I haven't got a problem with someone having an opinion if they annotate their posts as a guess, but I will give you a warning. Stating that because it wasn't x,y or z, it MUST BE ............ (fill a/r) is a disrespectful way to post. You DON'T KNOW what caused the death of my friend and 9 others, so don't state things as factual. My gut feeling is similar to sids, but that's all it is, a feeling.

as said before, please look at the hole in the roof and how the heli 'punched' thru. the roof took a huge amount of the energy, but these roofs are not that fexible, it's not shock absorbing compression zone.

Jayteeto, If I gave the impression that I knew the cause of the accident then it was the opposite of my intention. It was simply that this thread seems to have moved away from considering possible causes.
Regarding fuel I am, of course, aware of the layout of the tanks and pumps as clearly explained in earlier helpful posts. Beyond that I only know is what the AAIB have published.

SilsoeSid, thank you for your constructive suggestion. Please excuse my ignorance, but in what circumstances would a pilot need to chop both engines?
Like you, I remain baffled at the facts as published by the AAIB.

DABT, take note as your continued insinuation with regards to this being a human factors event without any evidence is becoming a little insulting to a man who can't answer back. I am not interested in your credentials as I doubt you have you have anything worthwhile to contribute.

Sid,

I experienced an engine failure in a Hughes 500D many years ago. I got the aircraft down safely....not a mark on it....and upon landing I would still swear I did not see all five blades pass by the nose before the Blades came to a jerky halt. The Autorotative RPM seemed fine....but the first indications of an engine failure were a bit confusing as it appeared the engine was putting out some power until I raised the Collective a touch and then it started getting ugly quick. Luckily I was way too high for such things.....about 9,000 feet AGL just coming of a Mountain Top in Alaska.

Tear down of the Engine later determined a bearing failure that allowed the power turbine to bind up against Gas Producer shaft....or some such thing.

In my event, turning the Rotor Blades also turned the engine....which was more than a bit interesting to listen to.

The AAIB made no mention of anything like that in the Glasgow Crash and until we hear from them in some sort of Report.....we do not know for sure there was no mechanical defect that played a role in the Rotor Blades coming to a stop very quickly.

I recall a research of accidents, all allegedly 'human error', which showed how 'human error' is not just simply 'human error'. The AF A320 accident near Muhlhouse was analysed, and others.
I also recall that the AAIB report from the actual crash mentioned a somewhat different state of destruction related to the 2 engines. That looks a bit suspicious for me, as the impact was not sideways, the engines are rather on the top of the airframe so the engines or related parts should perhaps not be damaged that differently, in theory. Could it be the case the different damage might be caused in some way by an earlier in flight mechanical failure? Which is now not obvious after the destruction from hitting the roof?