USCG stuck: Bodega Bay
 

Could happen to any of us, but extracting the Dauphin from that will be interesting :cool:

Coast Guard Helicopter Used In Boy’s Bodega Bay Rescue Now Stuck

http://cbssanfran.files.wordpress.co...ga-chopper.jpg

USCG stuck: Bodega Bay
 

Wow what a great rescue. My thoughts and prayers to the boy and his family. May he find a full recovery.

As for the stranded helo, I hope they devise a plan to recover the equipment. If not, no worries. It's always worth sacrificing equipment and property to save a life. Well done to the crew.

The U.S. Coast Guard is a fantastic service as evidenced by this story along with countless others, both told and untold.

Maybe hire this Austrian EMS pilot to recover the MH-65, looks like he has some experience with tricky slopes.


Bravo Zulu to the crew for a successful rescue.
Semper paratus!

Coast Guard Dolphin Stuck at Bodega Bay
 

A Coast Guard

Hi,

the angle the helicopter is stuked exceeds the slope limts given by the manufacture.
Further, you´re not sure, weather you can clear the stuck gear without problems and might have a pivot point for dynamic rollover.

Dragging out isn´t a good idea, cause the undercarriage isn´t designed to be draged through dirt.
I would dig down and use a hydraulik jack to level the helicopter, put a plank underneath the landing gear, remove the jack and fly the bird away....

Greetings Flying Bull

OK. There is easy access to the site, and no shortage of equipment or materials nearby. I'm puzzled why it took more than a couple of hours. I forgot the link, here it is.
Rescue helicopter grounded at Bodega Head | The Press Democrat

http://cbssanfran.files.wordpress.co...ga-chopper.jpg

"Heavy fog forced the helicopter to land on a slope during the rescue, and the angle it’s now stuck in makes it unsafe to lift off."

"The helicopter touched down on soft, sloping ground and began to sink in, preventing a safe take off, Coast Guard spokeswoman Loumania Stewart said."

"It was unclear why it couldn't be flown away. Officials said it was not damaged."
(I was going to link that to the recent discussion about slope limits for takeoff, but I couldn't find it)

The risk of dynamic rollover precludes any attempt to unstick oneself from the bog, better to jack it up and stick some wooden planks under the wheels, but even that carries its risks.

I'm sure those on the scene will do the right thing eventually.

CH-47,or CH-53...can`t be that difficult...

According to the pic in here they already pulled it to level ground:

Rescue helicopter grounded at Bodega Head | The Press Democrat

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/csp/med...YPE=image/jpeg

So why dont they want it to fly away now?

skadi

"Bodega Bay...Bodega Bay?! Oh, no! We've got to get out of here -- now! Damn! Hurry!"

http://i.imgur.com/tnRz9SY.jpg

:E

I/C

PrivatePilotRadarTech

Regarding "why it did not take a couple of hours" as there was "lots of equipment nearby"???

This is not the kind of job you should rush, or need to rush. The aircraft is safe - why screw it up by rushing? Getting this wrong will wreck the aircraft and risk lives. As for equipment nearby - i imagine that would not have included a (highly specialised) set of jacks for a Dauphin / Dolphin!

Had the same with an Army Lynx when the downhill skid sank in soft ground, putting the a/c out of limits. Took the crew ages to dig out from under the uphill skid to get back in limits. :mad:

call JOE PATRONE...he got that 707 unstuck just in time...shouldn't be hard.

OvertHawk

Regarding "rushing" the job of flying the CG Dolphin out of there, it got stuck on Monday and was still there on Wednesday. San Francisco is just a 1.5 hr drive away. Not a lot of rushing going on. I did find an interesting quote: "We were digging behind the main landing gear to safely roll it back down the hill onto the path to get it onto more level ground," US Coast Guard Chief Aviation Maintenance Technician David Blowers said. That explains part of my puzzlement, the first photos I saw showed the Dolphin on the path, looking very flyable, not where it set down. I should add that we're in a 3 yr drought. Might be a little mud out there, but not much, as you can see from the photo that Skadi posted.

Bodega Bay has water nearby..... California as a whole my have a drought, but I can assure you the Bay and nearby surrounding area is wet.

:*

Why not?

There is an De-Bogging kit listed in the ICO Chapter 13-10-...
and there is a procedure in the AMM Chapter 09-10-... which tells the Engineers how to use it.

It's not an difficult task and can be done forward or backwards, depends which direction is easier to access. ;)

The Landing Gear is designed and tested for these kind of "accidents"!

Here's an article on the resolution- it flew out at 4:30 pm Wednesday, so it sat there for about 48 hours.
Helicopter stuck after cliff rescue now back at | The Press Democrat

There seems to be some rivalry between the Coast Guard and our Sheriff's helicopter crews. You might enjoy reading this harrowing tale:
Sonoma County helicopter pilot honored for daring rescue | The Press Democrat

Glad to see they got out of it OK. As to night cliff rescues in N. California...

Both sailing vessels made it through the night safely.

It's a dangerous business. The local sheriff dept has lost 3 helicopters too:
Angel-1 crashed in 1977 while returning to the airport after searching for a lost child, killing Sgt. Wilkinson.

Angel-2 crashed in October of 1980, killing both deputy sheriff’s aboard, Brent Jameson and Bliss Magley, as they were returning to the airport following a late night call-out for an officer involved shooting.

In 1981 the county purchased a new MD 500D dubbed “Henry-1”, the name still used today. This helicopter was troubled with numerous mechanical problems including five emergency landings due to engine failure. The final emergency landing in the summer of 1982 left the helicopter severely damaged on tidal rocks North of Jenner.

No it's not - those were 3 avoidable CFITs.

Can hear the incoming Crab :sad:
Still a sad loss of life

I did an exchange tour with the USCG, not long after the two accidents in the mid 90s, a couple of Air Stations north from Humboldt Bay.

I agree with Crab 100% on this one. SAR is only dangerous if you go out ill prepared and lacking in judgement because of deficiencies in training. The Coast Guard I saw at the time was so risk averse in the training environment, and therefore the training was so limited, that it failed to properly prepare the crews for the environment they had to operate in.

Good and brave people, nevertheless.

Good and brave perhaps....but not very bright either!!!!!:ugh:

Not really sure what you mean there Helilog, or what exactly you comment on, so I hope I'm responding appropriately.

Actually, a lot of them were very bright and experienced individuals, but good judgement doesn't only come from within. It comes from having seen similar situations in training and filters down from the whole ethos of the organization you serve in.

Just exactly how does One teach "Judgement"?

If we consider the latest round of CFIT crashes in the UK, combine them with the ever constant roll call of the same in the US EMS Industry, and juxtapose any number of otherwise avoidable crashes like say the R-44 losing a Tail Rotor to a fuel mat......I would offer the Rotorcraft World does not do a very good job of it in general.

This "Judgement" thing does not stop with CFIT....it applies to each and every one of us as we go about our daily business.

Essentially, is it not the art of knowing when to say "NO!"?

No, the weather is beyond MY mininums!

No, that maintenance practice is insufficient to guarantee safety!

No, the Regulation does not prevent stupid conduct!

No, I shall not put myself and others at Risk just because the Rules, Regulations, and Boss tell me I can....and will!

Just what is this thing called "Judgement" anyway?

It seems a very nebulous term that has many variations around the World.

CFIT is 100% avoidable....since when is training required for common sense?

Really Helilog56?

So being able to get into an inlet in a rocky coastline, at night, in an onshore "50kt fog", or establishing a stable night hover 50 miles offshore with rapidly changing sea references and no horizon, is something you're just born with?

I"ll have to defer to your obviously greater knowledge and experience on that one.

That's the kind of CFIT we're talking about here, not cruising along at 2000ft until you're stupid enough to hit a hill.

a bit harsh there helilog - if your operating authority won't let you train for such conditions yet expects you to perform rescues in the same conditions then there is a certain inevitability about the outcome - very sad.

Train hard, fight easy is an excellent maxim.

Harsh perhaps, and yes all to sad.....but, is one that naïve, not to realize approaching conditions and turn back no matter what your operating authority or rules state?
And yes, I Have spent the better part of 38 years, flying from the Beaufort Sea to South America on its shores and mountains, and am very, very aware of what conditions are like and how quickly they can change. Training, crew resource management, and guidance/ mentoring is something I truly believe in, but it still does not ensure common sense or good judgement with some people.

Very true Helilog but there is often a sense of duty when employed on Search and Rescue operations that can skew that judgement and lead people to accept higher risks because lives are at stake.

The trouble is, if you have never trained in those conditions, it is easier to be optimistic about your chances of success because you don't realise how hazardous the environment you are about to enter actually is.

As inputshaft highlights - a risk-averse management structure doesn't actually make things safer....far from it because you then allow inadequately trained crews to put themselves at greater risk - unwittingly because they don't really understand the risks - than if they had been exposed to those risks, in a controlled fashion, during training.

I went out to Bodega Head today and looked over the site where the CG Dolphin was stuck. As I guessed, no mud whatsoever. No ruts. There were a lot of faint tire tracks in the grass at what I figure was the landing site, but no sign of any digging there. The only evidence of digging was at the path, where they widened it to make a flat spot to take off. It looks to me like the sole issue was the slope, which is probably 10%. They literally picked the steepest place around to land, while there were flat areas within 100 yds/meters, two gravel parking lots and a flat paved road within 1000'/300 meters. I expect better judgment than this. The boy who fell off the cliff was rescued and transported to the hospital by local firefighters (who deal with these incidents on a regular basis). He's still in a coma.

Obviously the crew had that bit of common sense to pick, on the ground anywhere, rather than try to find somewhere better, and end up another bunch of guys that pushed on and killed themselves. I guess that they got to that, oh $hit situation, saw a landing spot, put it down reassessed, oh well that's us done boys, shut it down we are walking from here.

I was told when training, it's better to be on the ground wishing you were flying, then in the air wishing you were on the ground...

PrivtPilotRadarTech

What is the basis for this expectation? Are you their boss, their examiner or their regulator? Which one?

Slopes can be deceptive at night when you first recce them. But I imagine you know that. :hmm:

SuperF- they were under no pressure to land. They were there to transport an injured child, they could have hoisted him aboard as he was already in a rescue basket. They failed to complete their mission and disabled their aircraft for 48 hrs, while many better options were readily available- flat ground nearby, two gravel parking lots, a paved road, using the hoist and aborting the landing.

Vie sans frontieres (sic) Their pay comes out of my pocket. This is what they are supposed to be doing, it doesn't seem too much to expect them to choose a safe landing spot when so many were available. In the USA, we call that judgment. I was in the USAF, I would have been in a lot of trouble if I'd disabled my equipment for 48 hrs.

PrivtPilotRadarTech


In Britain we have a feature called the Daily Mail/Mail Online comments page where people with similar views to yourself are most welcome.

I guess you must have missed this bit in the article:

You f#€k one goat!

Private Pilot/Radar Tech....flight crew paychecks come out of your very own pocket? Really?

Do tell us how the accounting for that takes place....you get an Invoice each pay period or something?

Now here I sit, thinking what it must have been like that night....near zero vis in Fog in some unloved terrain and the Crew elects to park it right where they are based upon Safety Considerations....and you think they "failed"?

Yeah Right!

Judgment?
 

BB, ( and others ), could it be that the crew involved knew that when they made a judgment call like this, they were certain of being backed up by their boss?

The hypothetical leader says to the aviators: Look, you are trained professionals and used to succeeding in flexible circumstances, BUT, if you are uncertain and have second thoughts about a particular operation, at any phase of it, stop it and call me. Tell whoever that I called it off. We will then figure out what to do next, and I can handle the heat from upstairs.

As some very experienced contributors have noted here, realistic training and experience in the mission are necessary factors in advancing the quality of a pilot's judgment, and all I add is that an environment of feeling able to say knock it off without repercussion might further enable that judgment.