S76 TV Tower in Istanbul/Turkey
 

At least 5 of 7 POB were killed when a S76 collided with a TV Tower in Istanbul 5 minutes after takeoff in dense fog.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news...-five-10001031

skadi

subject
 

This is how they reported it here...

Istanbul helicopter crash: At least Five Dead - Novinite.com - Sofia News Agency


RIP.

Pictures of the crash site below.

Büyükçekmece'deki helikopter kazas?n?n ard?ndan ilk foto?raflar - Foto?raf Galerisi - T24

Endem TV Tower
 

Elevation at the Endem TV tower: 193 m
The tower itself has a height of 236 m. There is a visitor area between 148 to 160 m.

Crash was recorded by a nearby CCTV

https://youtu.be/72a3WLSbk-I



skadi

That tower seems to be over 10 miles from the Ataturk airport (their reported departure point). Is 700' AGL appropriate at that location? It is an urban area.

I think the outcome is testament to the fact that 700' was in fact not appropriate. :(

Actually...height alone is not the criteria..

In this case just as in the London 109 Crane collision proved....track and height combined with visibility determines appropriateness.

How did ANYONE on board survive that...

I'm assuming it was early reporting and only 5 confirmed. Can't believe anybody survived.

Visibility
 

Reported as being Foggy - Many pictures show otherwise!
Would local radar not have seen what was about to happen and issued a warning.

These were the conditions right after the crash

http://media-cdn.t24.com.tr/media/se..._429790887.jpg

skadi

There was a bit of a breeze blowing - watch the smoke from the crash - and from my met theory from 1970 I understood that fog won't form in a wind.

So maybe this is low cloud blowing onto the hills, and the lazy ground-based reporters called it fog?

Fog or low cloud....with poor visibility.....are ignoring the simple fact it was the lack of being able to see and avoid the obstacle that is most likely cause based upon either the official forecast or the photo's being posted.:rolleyes:

I guess you never learned about advection fog or frontal fog then? The official definition of fog is just horizontal visibility of less than 1,000 metres (0.54 nm) caused by water droplets suspended in air, from what I learned in met theory

keke - AC was referring to radiation fog with his comments about wind - I think you'll find he knows plenty about the other forms.

MG - Istanbul Ataturk does not allow IFR rotary traffic so this ac would have been flying VFR, in theory along a set route and thus collision information unlikely to be passed.

Nowherespecial.
Should it have been allowed to take off then. Maybe out of limits but may have had SVFR approval if on approved low level route. Surely the Local radar would have all A/C on the screen and seen what might happen. My View.

I don't think the ATC would have been paying much attention to it, from the little I know of helicopter ops from that airport.

The area to the North of IST is very much different from the environment at IST. About 5km north you have rolling hills up to about 700' AMSL (IST is about 10' AMSL) with dense vegetation and forests. It absolutely 100% has it's own microclimate there. If they have no specific weather info from the area north of IST (and there are no airfields there so there is nothing accessible) then I suspect you could easily find suitable weather to launch at IST and a situation not close to being VFR in the region to the north.

IST is one of the world's busiest airports, a FW ac departs there every 50 seconds and lands on a different runway at roughly the same interval. The controllers hate RW traffic there as it interferes with the FW too much. From memory there is a speed restriction coming in of about 160kts minimum, hence no IFR for RW. Basically once the RW depart the ramp up by the VIP/ GA terminal, no one cares what you do and no one is really watching, certainly not in real time.

Just my experience of the area though.