I ,can say that if a rotor blade departs,then the remaining blades and gearbox will have departed too; this will likely take the Cof G past the nose,and the stick fully back...

An fascinating post from a QHI experienced in Tail Rotor failures in the sim.
In what follows I assume it was a tail rotor failure and the usual caveats to hasty judgement apply.
If I'm reading you correctly and not reading too much between the lines your sim experience tells you if you really do have a tail rotor failure, tail rotor control failure or failure in the drive train to the tail rotor by the time the handling pilot has evaluated all cues and eliminated other malfunctions; yaw trim actuator hard over, other pilots boots, or whatever then the situation is perilously close or already beyond effective recovery action. Put simply if you have a tail rotor failure especially at high power settings with low air speed, zero weathercock stability, then the collective lever has got to lowered immediately and swiftly, how long a second, two at the outside. Then given the T/O flight profile the nose must be lowered aggressively to recover airspeed for flare, check level. Do Flight Manuals even have graphs for this nightmare?

Another 'expert' who should know better...

Tony Cable

The significance of the anti collision light extinguishing in the video could be a sign of both generators going off line, this could be due to both engines being shut down, in turn suggesting the pilot shut them down in reaction to a tail rotor drive failure? Speculation on my part following a logical chain of events if the anti coll was extinguished.

Why? You think they're insects, he thinks they're pieces of tail rotor.

etc etc Yep, I agree with all of that, 100%.

The anti-collision light mounted on top of the vertical fin is still flashing. You can see it still flashing as it disappears behind the stadium.

Surely the time between seeing the so called object and the loss of control is way too long, would be instant.

His interview on Sky is shocking, implying that a simple lowering of the collective and cutting engines would have quickly brought the aircraft under control! He has either been seriously misquoted or lost the plot!

​​​​​​​Given his credentials and it's Sky, I'm guessing he's been seriously misquoted....but maybe experts here know better....
Tony Cable:
B.Sc., M.R.Ae.S
University of London BSc Honours Degree in Aeronautical Engineering
Powerplant Design Engineer with Boeing Aircraft on large public transports
Systems and Safety Engineer with BAe, including Tornado and Concorde
Aircraft Engineering Accident Investigator full-time since 1976
Visiting Fellow at Cranfield University

Surely he should know better than to pronounce the cause of the accident from a Sun video...

And a cursory glance at the wreckage shows the tail rotor roughly where it should be, albeit sans half of one blade.
Surely the imbalance of losing half a blade would have put the TRGB somewhere in the next county...?

doesnt the battery kick back in and supply power at that point?

I'm amazed by the low quality of the (Sun) video, and I've assumed that they have a higher quality version but have opted to share a highly compressed version online. The sun has now updated their video (watch from 1:18) where they replay the "interesting" part in slow motion.

I now doubt that they have a higher quality version, as I think they would have used that as the source for the replay. It's a shame, because it would have made it much easier to tell

Evidence is evidence no matter where it comes from. Given he was a senior guy with the AAIB engineering section for 40+ years and during that time investigated many infamous rotary accidents, I'm thinking that he probably still has the odd chat with them from time-to-time.

The change in direction of the rising puff of smoke from the engine whilst it was being started suggests to me the initial climb was with a tail wind....granted, maybe the wind was swirling inside the stadium but that smoke did catch a bit of tail wind...I don't think it was sucked in to some inflow into the rotor disc as the rotor had only just started to turn.

I'm still suspicious about that smoke...perhaps caused by oil momentarily getting past a labyrinth seal and burning in the hot engine? I'm not familiar with that particular engine, but it does look unusual.

Exactly! Speaking as someone who has been approached by the media to appear in such interviews, thought about it and declined, he does have my sympathy - especially as his personal experience was as a fixed wing pilot. One small slip of the tongue in the harsh spotlight of the media and you'll be pilloried here forever!

The smoke coming from the engine is nothing to be concerned about, if engineers got twitchy every time we saw a start with white smoke, none of us would ever go flying! It's too thick and too soon in the start cycle to be oil, it is almost certainly fuel - perhaps unburnt from the last shutdown being kicked out, or a small purge coming through prior to the ignitors cracking off, but most certainly not an issue to flight safety

Once DC buss 1&2 are lost the battery will power some essential services. The essential services busses can be used, but with limited systems, the anti coll is not on the list.. A rate of decent around 2500 feet per minute would give around six seconds before impact from that height, so not much time to do anything other than get the engines to off, not even time to get the switch made to get the gear down.

Looking at the latest Sun video, it looks like the 'object' approaches the rotor disc from behind, hits it and is spat downwards.......

Not insinuating or inferring anything here-merely an observation. I've watched the Sun video several times, paused it and tried (as best as possible) to advance it frame by frame. At 1.20 and 2 or 3 tenths (at a guess), just outside the red circle at about 3 o'clock, is a white dot which then enters the red circle seemingly heading towards the tail. That same white "dot" then seems to be spat out initially to the right but them starts heading rapidly across the screen right to left. At first I was convinced it was just an insect flying close to the camera but now I'm not so sure. What started as a dot now seems to become a very regular (rectangular) shape as it travels across the screen

Hang on, last time everyone looked, it was an insect :D

Birdstrike, a white drone( DJI )..? In that case he would seemingly be downwind since its "spat" downwards and left in screen...?

SHYTORQUE "Have you personally experienced this particular failure, or practiced it in a simulator?"

Hi Shy the answer is no, thankfully. For the FSTD yes, quite a bit. Actually just in the last weeks as part of my TRI/TRE revalidations. However, I have not tried TR failures at the top of TDP as the general wisdom would concur, its probably not going to end well. However, in my day job we are in this position on every take-off. VTOL Helipad variable TDP.

You will know the heavy emphasis in EASA land for the promotion of "Startle Effect" and "Resilience" training. The idea being that sound techniques, practiced slowly and deliberately, leading to multiple events in other phases of the training with decreasing notice and increasing distraction in an attempt to over come the "Startle" (I think we used to call this "Over arousal") and build resilience. I but into this and spend a lot of time with candidates/students doing TR failures and Autos. However, up to now, I have ignored this particular trajectory for the TR stuff.

I guess my real point is, does any us feel there is an acceptable solution in the average MEH for a TR drive failure close to VTOL TDP?

For the Hover TR Failure we have been teaching "DON'T DUMPT THE LEVER". Accept the rotation, keep level disc attitude and slowly lower to the surface allowing the wheels/skids to generate friction to slow the rotation. Dumping the lever with a rapid yaw rate we think will cause the wheels/skids to dig in an lead to a roll over crash.

How are other instructors teaching this failure?

I am now wondering how the Hover technique we are peddling above would translate to what is effectively at TDP, a zero speed hover?

Don't despair at what you can/can't/imagine to see. The posted Sun video quality isn't as good as their frame photos, so there could be posters/commentators with a better visuals than the unwashed on which to base their comments.

Double Bogey, I teach the same, but there is a technology shift that we have to adapt to: older helicopters had throttles on the collective, instant off and instant (relatively) stop of rotation. All new helicopters have remote throttles you can't reach, and dumping the collective is a crude tool that only takes away part of the torque.

I'm still not at all convinced that it's anywhere near the helicopter at any stage. Granted, it does fly right out of where the cab sits in the frame, but I think that's just pure coincidence.

Whatever it is will almost certainly have been elongated in the video because of the slow shutter speed being used on the camera (on account of it being dark above the stadium) and the speed of travel of the object (which if you assume it to have originated from the helicopter must be somewhere in the ballpark of 300mph!).

A paused frame can be said to look like almost anything with a white blob on it.

The context is various white blobs, some moving across, some up, some down, some back and forth...even while the a/c moves over beyond the stadium...They're bugs..

As I mentioned above, I think that it is just too much coincidence for an 'insect' to appear to come out of the exact point you would expect if there was a problem with the TR. Yes there are some other light 'flutterings' in the video but nothing like that and I also don't think the camera is focused to give the CCTV type insect images we often see . Given the statement from Tony Cable, I'm pretty much convinced that is something from the TR area letting go. As someone else wrote, it's unlikely he would have said that without some inside knowledge so I guess we'll know soon enough.

As crab@ points out, if you are not of the opinion that it's just a bug, you have to concede that whatever it is initially appears behind the helicopter, so is unlikely to be anything letting go from the TR area? I doubt there are too many at this stage not expecting the accident to be related to some kind of TR failure....

In the Bell 412 Sim, while training a very large metropolitan police force's aviation section, at their insistence we experimented with several interesting scenario's involving Tail Rotor failures of all kinds, main drive shaft failures, and even broken MR Pitch link failures at various hover heights .

Some were very high AGL as there are some very tall buildings in that particular city.

The interest was due to their doing various kinds of work involving hovering, hoisting/winching, and fixed line hauls of tactical personnel.

The 412 has an advantage....collective mounted hand throttles which aided in the Pilot being able to move the Collective AND simultaneously roll off the Engine RPM.

Knowing the failure was coming certainly added to the success rate in achieving a good outcome.

Height above ground, Indicated airspeed in the hover, and aircraft gross weight also played a role.

Not knowing the failure was coming and also not knowing what the failure was played a strong role in reducing the positive outcomes....but after a lot of training time....the outcomes were better than when experienced on the first flight where failures were random and a surprise.

The thing to remember....Simulators are just that....Engineers best guesses as to how the actual aircraft will react.

Some critical failures require very quick and exactly appropriate reactions....delay or apply the wrong technique and it does not end well.



I watched a TRE/IRE follow his company's SOP and kill himself (in the sim thankfully) due to the Emergency Checklist and SOP being incorrectly written.

He had been advised of the problem with his Company's procedures and copped a very arrogant and rude attitude and insisted the matter was not up for discussion.

Nothing had to be said in the long drawn out bit of silence as we waited for the Sim to restore itself.

His hat size reduction was only temporary as it is with those kinds of folks.

An observation: Question was raised about stowing the landing gear......why not leave the Landing Gear down until established on your Climb out at Vbroc AND a safe height?

As to holding the Collective and living with the rotation during a Tail Rotor failure at a Hover.....plainly does not fully understand how quickly the rotation accelerates while doing that.

To discuss the better procedure to follow has a lot to do with what Type and Model aircraft that is involved.

Bell products with Collective mounted motorcycle style hand throttles....simply rolling the throttle(s) off and doing a hovering autorotation can be the exact right thing to do.

But that does not work for all tail rotor failures in the hover or very slow speed across the ground.

Got it. Wild guess. Having reviewed John E's video posting(reposting?) I reserve judgment for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is lack of familiarity with that particular model, the local area around the stadium where this flight took place, and no idea of what the load out was. (Full bag of gas or not? etc).
Maybe. I hope not, but it has happened before.
Me too. But I chose not to leap to conclusions.
What I had hoped in asking that question of you was, since I had a hard time singling anything out in the videos (posted) available to examine, that you had seen something that I had not and could have explained that to me. You are invited to do likewise if you can't answer my question with a bit more civility.
Having flown helicopters, taught helicopter flying, and having had the opportunity to participate in accident investigations (fatal and not fatal) my interest is professional, not that of a gadfly. As you claim to be involved in maintenance, I can appreciate your interest as well.
The amount of misinformation (and in one case, possible slander or libel) posted during the discussion is disappointing.

LoneWolf,

unfortunately public forums will never stop with misinformation, thats an impossible task.
everyone is entitled to their opinion, experienced or otherwise.

it is hard to distinguish a persons demeanour thru written words, and if I misunderstood yours, I apologize. I too seek the truth of what happened, everything in the middle of that process is an exercise in patience. I will always participate, even if i end up being wrong.

Ok, I find this forum amazing at provinding information on various accidents that i am interested in when the news outlets "get bored" of reporting information, I follow all the accidents and incidents on here for information from fellow pilots, there is much rumor but everyone is entiltled to speculate on what happed just use your judgement to pick out the bits you feel are key and filter out the "opinions" that you decide are no so.

There is lots of speculation and hear say but thats the world we live in... our papers and news outlets are just as bad on different subjects.

I am a fixed wing pilot and have zero helo knowledge but its been nice to read and learn from heli pilots on here all the various details of heli ops ( i never knew a heli departure was so precise and complex)

Thank you, and RIP and condolences all involved in this terrbile accident

My track record for the past ten years is that I do roughly the same; when we are wrong, we can learn something, sometimes. Cheers.

Decades ago I was on the MCP01 rig when a departing helicopter did just that, struck the comms mast and was immediately dumped back on to the helideck. It was several days before it was repaired sufficiently to be flown out but with no passengers on board. All movements on and off were made by surface vessel until the helideck was vacated.

However, I came here looking for insight having just watched a Youtube video of this helicopter departure and spin down. Right at the start of the video there is a huge puff of smoke from the exhaust, quickly whipped away, like an old diesel tractor firing up. Not saying this is connected with this accident but is that normal? Not something I have ever seen before.