The cloud base was recorded as being around 300 feet that night, so a descent to 200 feet to gain sight of the surface was made. The terrain around the coast rises to over 2,000 feet in places, so descending over water presents the safest option, although not without a degree of risk, as you have pointed out.

Had the weather conditions been better, perhaps an approach would have been conducted from 500 feet, or Black Rock lighthouse would have been clearly visible. We almost certainly wouldn't be having this thread discussion.

Gouli
What exactly do you mean when you talk about an approach being conducted "from 500ft"?

rotorspeed

Poor choice of terminology, nothing more, nothing less. I think the meaning is perfectly clear. The choice of route and the height at which it was flown was primarily dictated by the prevailing weather at the time. Flying the same route at 500 feet would clear the Black Rock lighthouse.

That's what I would expect from a sim instructor and aviator, not,

So what is it that you have an issue with? I'm not following your selective snippets of forum posting. My point is, and remains, a transcript of the approach brief was not published in the preliminary report, so we don't know what was said, and so there is nothing further to say about it. The extract of the CVR transcript that was published, to me said a lot by what was not said. Too much silence. Silence in any language is bad CRM.

Rotorspeed - I think your post about numbers of callouts, East coast operational tempo and lack of recent familiarity is very valid and these will turn out to be important factors in their decision making process.

Megan an Gullibell. I think you should put your handbags down now. Unless you want to share with the group why you seem to dislike each other!

CRAB I hear your concerns but for me, this is a simple case of a very badly executed approach.

ALL safe IMC approaches contain the same 3 elements. A defined horizontal profile, a defined vertical profile (both designed to clear obstacles by the minimum criteria) and a point in space to aim for (DH, DA, MDH/MDH+MAPT.

It is now mandated that for NPAs the Operator shall specify a Constant Descent Final Approach, (CDFA) the principle being to stabilise the Descent AND to minimise the risks of unnecessary time spent tracking towards the MAPT at low height. Certainly ARAs in EASA land follow this principle.

In this case, from the information on the chart we have seen, this approach does not appear to include these essential elements.

Some have intimated in their posts, because it routes directly over the Blackrock, that the approach was not designed to be flown in IMC. If this is true then for what possible purpose was the approach even documented. Noise abatement??? Because if you are VMC you do not need to follow all those waypoints to get to Blacksod.

The changes that need to be considered are first and foremost, the assessment, design and approval of ALL approaches in IMC to required SAR operational sites.

The clear distinction between when an IFR approach is deployed to a fixed, known location such as Blacksod AND when a RADAR letdown is deployed.

Mandating CDFAs for all descents below MSA.

What also stands out in this thread is the intimation that SAR is different from all other operations and is therefore either immune to some risks or incapable of complying with some basic principles.

However, the hazards and risks associated with the action of descending from MSA to a point in space where flight can continue by visual references, is identical for all operations.

Given the extra equipment, extra crew, significant training budget/opportunities afforded to CIVSAR and the considerable standby time available to hone the paperwork and procedures; compared to all other operations, this accident should never have occurred and is incomprehensible.

What may lie at the heart of this is the culture of SAR operations and CIVSAR Crews.

First page AAUI report
 

In accordance with the provisions of Annex 131 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation, Regulation (EU) No 996/20102 and Statutory Instrument No. 460 of 20093,

"investigations are in no case concerned with apportioning blame or liability."


They are independent of, separate from and without prejudice to any judicial or administrative proceedings to apportion blame or liability. The sole objective of this safety investigation and Final Report is the prevention of accidents and incidents.

Accordingly, it is inappropriate that AAIU Reports should be used to assign fault or blame or determine liability, since neither the safety investigation nor the reporting process has been undertaken for that purpose.

Too much time watching telly in the crewroom? Is that what you think DB?

For years, the relative lack of training hours in civsar compared to the military has been the subject of discussion on pprune. How much time do you think can be devoted to radar letdowns in rocky coastlines when the vast majority of training time is spent trying to find a vessel that is motoring in a direction that will give you sufficient performance to live winch? Then you also have cliffs, wet winching, drums etc, day and night. Radar practice takes a lot of time out of a limited training budget.

DB - You are incorrect re CDFA- they only apply to Aeroplanes NOT helicopters
Although it is recommended that helicopters should fly a nominal GP

DB,

I think you should put your handbag down as well! You seem to be Mr. Perfect, who shows quite arrogant attitude towards SAR Operators and CIVSAR Crews without knowing their current practices!

DB - the reasoning for CDFA for FW is that there are less trim and attitude changes required compared to having to level off at MDA/H and then reconfigure for landing if you get visual.

Being able to come in at MDA/H in a helicopter is often the difference between getting in and not since a small gap in the cloudbase can give you the required references to convert to visual approach and land.

For exactly the same reasons, SAR approaches do not need to be CDFA, although the transdown to 200' or whatever is selected is, in essence, exactly that.

If you get visual before 200' you have the option of converting to visual flight, if you don't, you can continue in at 200' until you get visual with the target/coast whatever you are letting down to.

200' gives a good compromise between getting visual beneath the cloud and keeping clear of most obstacles (buoys, small rocks small vessels etc) and gives a good radar picture as well. In addition, you have at least some height to play with in the event of a malfunction.

Try to understand that your offshore procedures do not give the operational flexibility required for SAR.

I think DB is making an important point here, and it's one I tried to make in #1547 also. Although Corporate, O&G, and SAR have very different ways of doing their specific thing, some operations (eg. visiting an onshore fuelling site) are identical in whichever field you are operating in. The SOPs ought to recognise that.

So how would O&G or corporate crews conduct an IMC letdown to Blacksod at night with a 300' cloudbase?

As said above, not mandated for RW. Also, ARAs are not flown as a CDFA. A "CDFA" is flown like a Precision Approach to a Decision Altitude/Height (actually a DDA, to allow a margin such that the MDA/H is not infringed on go around) not a Missed Approach Point. SPA.HOFO specifically talks about planning the approach so that the "levelling" is not done at the same time as other manoeuvres.

The vertical profile diagrams also show a definite level segment.

ARAs as currently flown most certainly fit with your statement that:

but they are not CDFAs as defined, which is where your use of the term is maybe confusing other posters.

Questions for S92 operatorsor others; is it possible to fly a parallel offset track/descent profile ie 1/4/,1/2 nm left or right of a canned procedure..?

Is the radar `stabilised` once the tilt has been set manually ,during a descent/transition -down` to look at the same `picture,whilst taking account of changes in aircraft pitch attitudes...? or is that still manual..?

With an appropriate approach profile to a suitably placed MAPt, according to minima appropriate for the role, equipment fit, and training of the crew. Subject (if applicable) to availability of suitable pre-planned weather alternates.

The point is that nobody outside the SAR world (and at least some within it, it seems) would even consider the approach profile taken by this flight, and if they had been given the APBSS chart they would have stored it in the VFR section of their flight bag if not the round file next to their desk. But because they could, they did.

Ponto
I believe the night minima is normally 300 feet above deck height. If the cloudbase was 300 feet then you would need to conduct the standard MAP at 0.75nm based on the radar image of the target.

G.

But Blacksod isn't a deck (I don't think), or a distressed ship, or a man overboard, and that's the point.

Blacksod is not an oil rig or platform.

It it an on shore landing site that is used frequently as a fueling point by CHC Irish Coast Guard Crews.....often while SAR Operations are on-going.

The Operator knows landings there will be necessary during adverse weather and at night or both.

Commonsense alone....tells us there should be Weather Minima set forth for flight operations even for SAR Operations and a formal Approach Procedure should be documented for use by CHC crews that adheres to the policies and procedures set forth in SOP's and the AOC.

Even SAR Ops have real weather limits as at some point the aircraft has to be able to carry out the Task and safely return.

Ponto - Crab

Crab asked the question and Ponto tried to answer but the point I was making was that an O & G crew would NOT be able to descent below a 300 feet base because the normal night minima would be something greater than 300 feet. Typically 350+ feet.

G

Hence my point about ARA procedures not being flexible enough for SAR Ops - under those conditions they wouldn't have been able to make an approach at all.

Yes, it is a refuelling base but they were still on a SARop with mission to support (or even replace) R118.

However, rather than assume SAR profiles are not safe, concentrate on what they did fly which was not a SAR profile letdown to Blacksod but a strange company procedure 10 miles away from where they needed to be.

Had this APBSS approach not existed, any views on what sort of approach are they likely to have made to Blacksod?

Crab & Geoffers. Doh ! I'm not making a point about what an O&G crew would do on an ARA approach to a hypothetical deck, or whether such a crew could get in on that night.

Like SASless I'm talking about what ANY crew (corporate, O&G, SAR) OUGHT to be doing when making an approach to a well surveyed and much used onshore site (Blacksod).

Just because SAR crews CAN make approaches like this crew, and on many occasions I'm sure HAVE to, doesn't mean they SHOULD or should have to when making fuels stops onshore. Flexibility can be provided by adjusting minima for the role if required.

And I'm not making competitive points about SAR vs O&G vs Corporate either. Corporate are quite capable of flying perfectly serviceable helicopters into cranes and O&G can drop perfectly serviceable helicopters into the drink off well designed approaches.

If Blacksod is used so regularly by SAR crews, presumably in all conditions, why were the hazards and shortcomings of the questionable 'standard' procedure that this crew was using not highlighted and amended a long time ago?

Punto - I think the fact that they hit a rock they didn't know was there calls into question the 'well-surveyed' element and I'm not sure how often Blacksod does get used, especially by East coast crews.

However, I fully take your point about the conduct of the approach, but until we know what the CVR says, we won't know why they chose this approach or elected to letdown to 200' so early in the procedure.

There were many more options available to them since the S92 is such a capable machine, the SAR type letdown isn't inherently dangerous but what it appears they did doesn't follow what I would call normal SAR protocols.

If the rock hadn't been there, they would still have been faced with a 10-mile transit at 200' in the dark, downwind with any go-around being towards land - not my favourite sort of option.

It does get you thinking about why that approach was even documented for these aircraft.

More detail of the combination of contract requirements and regulatory regime would help us to form a better picture of what guided their choices. Currently, most of us can only guess at what their options were.

CRAB, I think you are correct. What this crew seemed to have done did not conform to any kind of sensible solution for Blacksod and certainly not what I understand to be a SAR letdown.

Obnoxious fwit, I agree, using the EXACT definition of a CDFA does not suit ARA, or indeed a SAR approach. However, apart from the FW desire to descend to an apparent DA on an NPA, the underlying principles of CDFA add significant safety benefits. Nonetheleast of which is the REQUIREMENT to define both horizontal and vertical profiles.

Searchandrescue, I hope I am PERFECT if your implication is to not be so ends up like the subject of this thread.

Like Punto and other posters have said. For a fixed regular refuelling point you would have expected a properly constructed approach.

CRAB the minima for an ARA at night is a mitigation of risk, commensurate with the requirement to slow down from Vy speed stable to effect the final landing in the reduced visual cues available in the dark. SAR crews could well go lower, commensurate with the mitigations of the task. However, discarding all the good stuff currently in a well organised ARA just because the published O&G minima is too high would be a mistake. Having said that. I know that your Radar letdown follows a structured descent, not normally ending up tracking 10 nms at 200 feet.

[QUOTE=jimf671;9757064]It does get you thinking about why that approach was even documented for these aircraft.

I am not familiar with the whole Company Route Guidance information and only accident investigators have access to Crew Briefing CVR-material concerning this flight/approach, but...

If the crew had passed Blackrock at "safe altitude" or avoided it laterally, they most likely could have flown rest of the route with LNAV/FMS coupled; all the way to Blacksod. I am pretty sure that this aircraft is capable to follow the routing (within RFM speed limitations of course)... even the tight left turn north east of Blacksod at BLSDC waypoint. So, I think the approach routing is not a problem for this aircraft!

It seems that people are getting bogged down with the intricacies of the approach this crew elected to fly.

The fact remains that, with the latitude of operational flexibility that SAR crews are allowed, occasionally poor decisions are made. Mostly, they don't culminate with loss of life. In this case the priority of the investigation is to establish whether this was simply poor decision making or whether there are wider cultural/organisational issues.

Without a doubt there will be some very worthwhile lessons to be learned. Regardless of which aviation world you inhabit.

S&R,

Aircraft only do what they are told to do by Humans.

That shall always be the Achilles Heel of automation.

I TOTALLY AGREE!:ok:

My earlier post was only a reply to Jimf671.

S&R - my view (and I think that of some others) is that this APBSS routing was not created for these SAR aircraft as an approach to Blacksod, but is just a long established old VFR route between two lighthouses, Blacksod and Blackrock. Which is why it has route direction arrows each way and no vertical profile info. As I think ? Crab/DB/Punto said, it makes no sense as a VFR approach to go 10 miles further west than necessary, and it cannot be an IFR approach without a vertical profile. I suspect its use was just because it existed and then it was melded with a standard SAR let down to 200ft without enough thought, aggravated by the crew's local unfamiliarity and rushing to launch.

If the route was already preprogrammed into the FMS as a result of previous taskings or appeared as a selectable option...

Hey, someone else has already worked out a routing previously, we'll just follow that. Must be okay, it's stored in the FMS.

Can it really have been as simple as that?

It could have appeared as a simple, safe option to a crew unfamiliar with the area operating in pretty poor weather conditions. Why reinvent the wheel when someone else has apparently already done all the hard work?

Descend to gain sight of the surface over open water, select the route and concentrate on the rest of the mission. An expectation that the route was "safe" because someone must have flown it before, would certainly go a long way to explaining the apparent initial confusion and lack of urgency in changing course in response to the FLIR operator warning of an obstruction ahead.

A land based analogy could easily be drawn with professional lorry drivers blindly following sat nav directions and colliding with low bridges or other hazards when it should be obvious that the route is unsuitable.

GOULI, I really hope not. The ONLY time I put my & my crew's life in the hands of an IMC procedure, is when I know that it has been designed to a prescribed set of approved criteria, with all of the quality controls that go with that. I find it barely believable that a highly respected crew such as this would do otherwise .... I hope I'm not proven wrong.

Would not a previous route entry be in volotile memory? ( usual caveat.I have no knowledge of RW systems or operations).

O&G ARA Procedure
 

Here's the Airborne Radar Approach plate we use when flying offshore to rigs and ships in our S92's, S76C++'s and AW139's. We have to use the radar to reference all distances on the final approach. Our MSA offshore is 1500'. You can join the final approach by flying overhead the station at 1500', flying an arc onto final or doing a straight in approach. On a straight in final approach, be it 6 miles or 20 miles, we must ensure we have no radar targets on our approach path and that it's clear of targets 1 mile either side of track. We can descend down to 1000' Radalt if the aforementioned conditions are met. At 6 miles back we can descend down to 600' Radalt and at 4 miles back we are good to descend to our MDA of 300' Radalt at night and 200' Radalt in the day. It doesn't matter if we are IMC or VMC, we still descend down to our minimums after 4 miles. There's the standard offset of 10 degrees at 1.5 miles and then a further 30 degrees and climb at the MAP of 0.8 miles if we aren't visual. Copilots and Captains use the Radar in GMAP 2 and constantly adjust the tilt and variable gain for the best picture. The radar range is brought down from 10 miles to 1.5 miles incrementally on the final approach as the helicopter gets closer. If any target appears in front of the helicopter or within the 1 mile boundary either side of track the Flight Crew initiates an immediate climb at takeoff power to 1500'. Happened to one of our crews just last week when a supply boat came into the 1 mile zone on a 10 mile straight in approach at night in IMC conditions. There's no chance of flying into a rig, vessel or rock using this approach unless the radar is not being used correctly.

And if you try to overlay that procedure on Blacksod, especially with Westerly wind, it just doesn't work - hence the need for a SAR type letdown rather than an ARA.

RL77CHC

Thank you for the information and pictures. I note that the first graphic displays a circle at the top containing a reference to MSA information being displayed on Page 2. That is extremely relevant to earlier posts where many posters were absolutely insistent that all approach plates contained all relevant information on a single page. The information referring to the height of Black Rock Lighthouse was also apparently contained on a second page according to information contained in the preliminary report.

That certainly helps develop my mental picture of what could have happened. It will be interesting to see if this forms a significant part of the final investigation report.