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I think it's absolutely unbelieveable that some people are slagging off the special forces for undertaking realistic training in realistic conditions. Their mandate covers all sorts of scenarios the best of us can hardly imagine, but clearly some here aren't anywhere near that imaginative.
The ability to insert or extract a team in any and all weather (or smoke and dust) is clearly of extreme interest to such people and I for one am glad they are doing it and not constrained by snowflakes and silly post-industrial age H & S nonsense. Anyone who imagines this sort of thing is done unthinkingly and ad-hoc without briefing or preparation is living in a vacuum. Maybe one day they'll be the ones locked in a box and need someone with these skills to get them out ad-hoc and without much briefing and preparation, and would then be damn glad the prep and practice had been done elsewhere... |
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Originally Posted by meleagertoo
(Post 10214263)
I think it's absolutely unbelieveable that some people are slagging off the special forces for undertaking realistic training in realistic conditions. Their mandate covers all sorts of scenarios the best of us can hardly imagine, but clearly some here aren't anywhere near that imaginative.
The ability to insert or extract a team in any and all weather (or smoke and dust) is clearly of extreme interest to such people and I for one am glad they are doing it and not constrained by snowflakes and silly post-industrial age H & S nonsense. Anyone who imagines this sort of thing is done unthinkingly and ad-hoc without briefing or preparation is living in a vacuum. Maybe one day they'll be the ones locked in a box and need someone with these skills to get them out ad-hoc and without much briefing and preparation, and would then be damn glad the prep and practice had been done elsewhere... |
There is no road response on the TT because the road is being used for the race. That's why they need a helicopter....
The rules go out of the window for the purpose of saving life as far as I am concerned. |
So it was you then crab? DB - you do need a bit of a reality check with regard to what was being done here - you have absolutely no idea what task they were on. HEMS might not be allowed to do this but UKSAR operate under EASA rules, under CAP 999 and they would be allowed to operate like this to save life! However, I'm with Paco and, if you are the only asset, and you have the ability and training to mitigate the risk, then save lives if it is possible. I, like many SAR pilots, have had to turn down jobs or turn back because the rescue was simply too dangerous but a straightforward hovertaxy in cloud with decent references and an escape route/IF option really isn't that risky. |
The rules go out of the window for the purpose of saving life as far as I am concerned. Crab hits the nail on the head - there is a limit. It may be more than the limit on civilian systems, but there is a limit, and rules, and we stick to them As for this flight, we will never know, nor due the nature of the work should we. |
All the crews I have been with have been perfectly happy, and have said so, including when going under wires etc. I'm glad you've never been in my cab. I know my limits and the risks involved. If they happen to be higher (or lower?) than other peoples' then so be it. I don't see a particular risk with the Dauphin. Meat and drink to anyone who has ever been in N Ireland.
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Paco there is no doubt you have skills otherwise you would not have survived. However, JSP318 also has rules as you well know and after a crew wiped themselves out in Battus, responding to a medivac in ****e conditions, the rules were more rigidly applied. Civilian SAR rules also would prevent flight in fog below MSA. Medical missions require maturity on the part of the flight crew. Certainly I would never risk my life, let alone the crew, for a motorcycle racer who has voluntarily taken excessive risks. I write this as an relatively experienced HEMS pilot and a motorcyclist. Remember Operation Overlord was delayed until the weather improved! The AAC lost a number of aircraft and crews in BAOR due to flight in inappropriate weather. On my pilots course and throughout my training and service no one ever suggested flight in fog, close to the ground, was required or a good idea. Those of you advocating helicopter flight in fog close to the ground need close supervision and to be reminded to read the rules. Finally, the more seriously injured the patients are, the chances of survival are reduced. Should we risk 3 or 4 lives for the sake of 1 which may not survive anyway? For anyone who has conducted intense HEMS operations (and I mean several jobs every working day), they will recognise this as the true paradox of HEMS! At the end of the working day I want to go home. Compliance with the rules and limits is the foundation of safety. Breach them at your own peril and good luck to your loved ones if you pile in while breaking rules or breaching limits because the Insurance Company will exploit your enthusiasm to your detriment. |
Double bogey this wasn’t hems!!! if it was the SAS (which the colour /type of aircraft suggest They tend to do the opposite and when they are finished HEMS or Medevac take over if if I wanted some help from SF I would be thankful they practiced in bad weather conditions before carrying my troop out |
I have said my piece. If some of you want to fly in fog........enjoy! You all know it’s dangerous, below limits and will invalidate your insurance............good luck! |
The Dauphin caused a car carrying a family to stop unexpectedly on a narrow road in poor visibility and a multi-vehicle RTC was a tangible risk of the helicopter's low level manoeuvre. We don't know the circumstances of the flight or the risk-benefit of this particular mission, but an inquest is not the best place to justify those decisions.
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Rules....not one of them is etched in stone! Look carefully at the video and look for visual cues behind the aircraft. Theres a lot of green under the gray. |
Oh dear DB - I would love to see you on your high horse trying to complete a mission with a suddenly lowering cloudbase (and you know that happens in the hills and can be very localised) with not enough fuel or suitable weather for an IF abort (because of the task) - if it takes a few hundred yards of careful hovertaxying to get VMC the other side (where the terrain doesn't permit a safe 180 or a precautionary landing) what would you do?
You can't see what the crew are looking at - they are more than well trained enough to assess letterbox situations and what terrain and weather to expect on the other side. BTW 1 - JSP318 is so last century and these boys are flying a twin-engine, fully IFR capable aircraft with a good AP system - not an unstabilised Gazelle like in BATUS. BTW 2 - straight from CAP999 Operating minima for the dispatch and continuation of a SAR operational flight are at the discretion of the aircraft commander. However, he is to consider the urgency of the task, crew and aircraft capability and the requirement to recover the aircraft safely |
How do I know who is badly injured and is or is not likely to survive? Even if I was medically qualified I'm not on the scene and in a position to judge. My job is (or was) to do the best I possibly can to assist based on the advice of the guys getting their boots dirty. And I will do that up to my own personal limits, which may or may not coincide with anybody else's. None of us says "Oh goody, here's fog, let's go fly!" But if it comes across our path, we should make the best judgment we can.
A safety point for those who have not been there - the helicopter creates its own bad weather - if you are forced to stop, and turn round you will find that the air has been stirrred up behind you to make your trip home likely worse, so the go decision should not be taken lightly. |
Crab.....I have completed a few HEMS missions......almost 3,500 of them. Certainly enough to have experienced most of what the weather can upchuck at you. As I posted earlier, I have made a similar mistake....but I see it only as that. A mistake and learned from it! there are rules and there are limits. For CIVSAR I bow to CRABS greater knowledge but the principles remain the same. Certainly in HEMS we should strive to apply them. My Ambulance Ops Director once told me not to take any risks with his crews. I was impressed by his guidance and told him so. He replied that he had given me the same speech that he gave all his Ambulance drivers on qualification. He saw the helicopter as just another ambulance and he was right. PACO the answer is “you don’t know” However, after you have exploited your HEMS alleviation’s to the maximum, almost taken a car bonnet through the disc and risked everything......only to discover a broken ankle to some such other minor scrape.....you learn to deploy your greater judgement! As you don’t seem to understand this I am guessing you have dipped your toe in HEMS and not really served your time. For the rest of us we deploy ourselves professionally and within our alleviation’s. And I want to be clear.....the HEMS rules provide more than enough scope to get into trouble. Performance alleviation’s, no safe forced landing AND flight in reduced weather. Only a start staring fool would elect to apply his own personal lower limits. As such Paco, I have to say you preach utter bollocks that has no place in modern HEMS operations if longevity interests you at all. |
Originally Posted by paco
(Post 10214326)
There is no road response on the TT because the road is being used for the race. That's why they need a helicopter....
The rules go out of the window for the purpose of saving life as far as I am concerned. I wasn't going to comment on this thread but I can't believe you wrote that. I'd certainly hope that anyone reading what you've written disagrees. Usually I agree with your offerings to PPRuNe but to say you'd risk the lives of others in the back of your helicopter to save a life? Is there actually a need? You only have to look at the accident stats in USA where the HEMS aircraft has crashed in poor conditions. If it's not safe or sensible to launch, then you don't launch. To say otherwise, in my personal opinion, is maybe a bit too bold. edited to add that i'm referring not to Mil ops as I have zero idea about such things, but UK HEMS? |
I don't know that there's a need or not, and any such decision would have to be in agreement with the team. We have to draw a line somewhere. If I fly for a company I fly up to the limits of their ops manual and/or whatever Air Navigation order is valid at the time (one of the best compliments I ever got was from Chalky White who said that I flew exactly down the line that JCB wanted). BUT, there is a clause in the rules that says they can be broken for the purpose of saving life - which I will make use of a) if I have to and b) if it's within my own capabilities. If the ambulance chief says don't mess with his crews, fine - it's his money and pilots are only in charge up till the point where the trip becomes illegal or unsafe. But I also can't believe some of the garbage that is being spouted by some of the professionally outraged.
"If it's not safe or sensible to launch, then you don't launch." Of course - I haven't said otherwise. But usually you don't know that until you have launched. That's when we have to exercise some professional judgment, which I seem to have done successfully for over 8700 accident free hours, and not just dipping my toe in. When did we start not even trying? I must have missed that one. |
Originally Posted by G-ARZG
(Post 10214529)
As an aside, the nationals have picked this up, pic is on p20 of today's Times
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My Ambulance Ops Director once told me not to take any risks with his crews. I was impressed by his guidance and told him so. He replied that he had given me the same speech that he gave all his Ambulance drivers on qualification. He saw the helicopter as just another ambulance and he was right. Folks were dying waiting on ground transport long before the Helicopter was invented.....and will continue to do so when the Helicopter cannot get to them. If you cannot get them back to the medical facility due to weather....if you land out or make an IFR recovery....you will call.....a Ground Ambulance to complete the transfer! |
One might have 500ft at the airfield and a perfectly good alternate for IFR transition, but it’s only when you get into the mission that deteriorating conditions force your hand... Personally, I’m a suck it and see merchant If the info is genuinely life threatening, not a “risk accessment chappy” However, that being said, these guys train for serious **** day in and day out, and I know which face I’d rather see hover taxiing under the wires if my guts were hanging out.... |
FFS - retain some perspective here - this wasn't a HEMS mission so all those arguments are irrelevant. BTW the advice of an ambulance manager who isn't a pilot really isn't pertinent - his job is to keep his medics safe , not make aviation judgements.
Second - they were not deliberately training in those conditions - if you have to get from A to B and you are limited on fuel, constrained by terrain and caught out temporarily by a very localised bit of weather - you do what they did, have a look - if it's not good enough you turn round (if you can) if it is good enough you carry on into the nicer weather. Remember you can't see the conditions behind the car - ie where the aircraft is going - so you have no clue in your armchair what the crew could and could not see. Anyone who has flown in that area knows how quickly the weather can go from epic to sh*te and back again within a few hundred metres. But I would question the judgement of doing in the proximity of a public road like that. |
Originally Posted by [email protected]
(Post 10214560)
FFS - retain some perspective here - this wasn't a HEMS mission so all those arguments are irrelevant. BTW the advice of an ambulance manager who isn't a pilot really isn't pertinent - his job is to keep his medics safe , not make aviation judgements.
Second - they were not deliberately training in those conditions - if you have to get from A to B and you are limited on fuel, constrained by terrain and caught out temporarily by a very localised bit of weather - you do what they did, have a look - if it's not good enough you turn round (if you can) if it is good enough you carry on into the nicer weather. Remember you can't see the conditions behind the car - ie where the aircraft is going - so you have no clue in your armchair what the crew could and could not see. Anyone who has flown in that area knows how quickly the weather can go from epic to sh*te and back again within a few hundred metres. the best aid you can have in those conditions is a line feature - it gives you a visual reference and helps your navigation, The worst thing they could have done is meander 'off-piste'. Anyway, anyone driving fast in those conditions is far more likely to cause an accident than the helicopter's presence. |
After all the publicity this is getting I have no doubt the pilot in question will be having an interview without coffee not least from the authoriser and quite rightly so. |
Originally Posted by MOSTAFA
(Post 10214580)
After all the publicity this is getting I have no doubt the pilot in question will be having an interview without coffee not least from the authoriser and quite rightly so. |
Yes - SERIOUSLY. UNLESS of course you know differently and have experience of such operations and even then I’d still say ballocks. |
Originally Posted by helicrazi
(Post 10214586)
seriously???? :ugh:
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Why should the publicity make any difference? I have no doubt the crew reported the low flying below minima on their return and their reasons for doing so - that's what you have an in-brief for.
For the chain of command to react in a knee jerk fashion just because someone posted it on t'internet in the hope of making a few quid would be very disingenuous. |
The AAC lost a number of aircraft and crews in BAOR due to flight in inappropriate weather. |
Originally Posted by G-ARZG
(Post 10214529)
As an aside, the nationals have picked this up, pic is on p20 of today's Times
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This is awesome t'internet judge and jury at the very finest end of that spectrum. All of a judgement based on a small part of the evidence.
If you weren't there, you don't know. I've been in the back, and front, (even at one point strapped to the outside, in a litter on a Souix) of military, and civil helicopters doing things "that needed done" for the job. Of course "needed" is a variable definition, but that's part of the fun, is it not? Never, have I ever thought that if I was uncomfortable with what we were doing, would I keep quiet. I doubt that any (ok maybe one or two) posting on here know the crew, but lots of folk reading this know the ethos of the flight in the video. The car driver reacts, and has time to verbalise his response, before the aircraft is identified in the video. Some of the "piss poor vis" comes from the limitations and performance of dash cam. Even if, and it's a huge if, the circumstances are in fact as they look, where do you get the idea that anyone on board is not "on board" with what's going on? The aircraft commander is almost certainly not arrogantly endangering the crew and aircraft, he's apparently part of a team, all of whom are apparently practising doing what needs practised for. |
Mightgem, Detmold cab into the ridge......I think 85 or 86. Gazelle into a range post I think Saltau or Sennelager. Memory fades. The “Sooty” incident....in good weather. Gazelle in Battus attempting night casevac. I am sure there are a few more. Crab....your dismissal of the Ambulance Operations Directors guidance speaks volumes in respect of your lack of understanding on exactly how HEMS works. The Commander only makes the decision not to fly. The HEMS task can only be requested by Ambulance Operations. In addition, the Ambulance Service is the client. If the Director issues a directive we comply where we can. |
I suspect that people who have day to day knowledge on this operation aren’t commenting on this subject but as an aside, hover taxiing in fog is an entirely different exercise from scud running i.e. flying in IMC below MSA. Ask anyone who is qualified to operate in an RVR below 400m how they get from the runway to dispersal. I do realise that will be in a rather more controlled environment than involved here. Cheers TeeS |
DB - I have never claimed to be HEMs qualified or experienced but my comments about ambulance directors are far better informed than yours about this crew, their capabilities, their task and their particular situation.
I get that you are glorified ambulance driver in modern HEMS but don't confuse that with SAR or SF - different world entirely. |
Air police, the fenestron is 10 feet off the deck. There’s a reason for that....the vis sucks. It’s aviation insanity and there is no justification to fly like this....ever. That’s not moral outrage. It’s common sense. |
Crab sorry mate....there is only one world. It’s the same for all of us. The lumpy bits bite. SAR, SF, HEMS, CHARTER, we have lost Rotorheads in all these disciplines in bad weather CFIT. |
Originally Posted by DOUBLE BOGEY
(Post 10214728)
Air police, the fenestron is 10 feet off the deck. There’s a reason for that....the vis sucks. It’s aviation insanity and there is no justification to fly like this....ever. That’s not moral outrage. It’s common sense. Well, I can't see the surface, below the aircraft, as it's behind the wall, by an undetermined distance, but if you can ascertain that it's ten feet, then so be it. Looks like more than ten feet to me. |
Originally Posted by DOUBLE BOGEY
(Post 10214707)
Mightgem, Detmold cab into the ridge......I think 85 or 86. Gazelle into a range post I think Saltau or Sennelager. Memory fades. The “Sooty” incident....in good weather. Gazelle in Battus attempting night casevac. I am sure there are a few more. |
DB, Thanks for you reply to my P.M. and I understand where you're coming from. However, we've also lost crews in 100% VMC.
Having worked under "other" rules where the weather limits were written down as "at Captain's discretion", I've occasionally flown (not recently because I now fall under under more stringent rules), in extremely poor weather conditions. Sometimes an IFR recovery was out of the question and a hover taxy in very poor visibility was the only option, other than ditching the whole show in the sea. "Captain's discretion" means exactly that, obviously if you get it wrong you might pay the ultimate price. The crew involved in this instance had a better option, they could have landed on the ground, so presumably were happy enough to carry on with sufficient visual cues. Is JSP 318 still valid, btw? |
“He replied that he had given me the same speech that he gave all his Ambulance drivers on qualification. He saw the helicopter as just another ambulance and he was right.” “There are no circumstances acceptable EVER to fly in such a manner as to risk the safety of your aircraft or crew.” Some commenters on this thread could have a useful second career as a civvy traffic warden. |
Me thinks I may have encountered such weather on flights made together out of that Sunshine Holiday Capital in the Shetlands as we flogged to and from the Ninian Field in its early days.
In the time of Decca finding home was more by Braille than by Science. Memory serves me that VMC Minima was lower than IMC.....something about clear of cloud (which Fog ain't it being a surface weather phenomenon and all). For sure you could not see over the nose of the Helicopter and see anything but gray....requiring you to look down past your elbow to see anything Green. All by the book of course! |
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