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Newlywed Helo Crash in Texas
A fatal crash for the couple and pilot as they depart the evening's festivities. The helo was N416WT, a Bell 206B registered to the groom's family construction business.
Newlyweds killed in helicopter crash while departing wedding ceremony, report says Will Byler, Bailee Byler, helicopter pilot died in crash, Houstonian reports By Mariah Medina - Digital JournalistPosted: 3:01 PM, November 04, 2018 Updated: 4:40 AM, November 05, 2018 UVALDE, Texas - A newlywed couple leaving their wedding ceremony in a helicopter died early Sunday morning when the helicopter crashed, according to a report from the Houstonian. Will Byler, his wife, Bailee Ackerman Byler, and their pilot died in the crash, according to the Houstonian, the student newspaper for Sam Houston State University. The newspaper reported that the Bylers were both in their senior year at the university. Eric Smith, a friend of the Ackerman family, posted to Facebook early Sunday morning that the couple and the helicopter pilot had died in the crash after the ceremony. Jacob Martinez, an individual working the event, shared video of the moment the couple took off in the helicopter. The Uvalde County Sheriff's Office said it received a call from an aviation monitoring center about a possible downed aircraft in northwest Uvalde around midnight. Texas Department of Public Safety troopers, game wardens, Border Patrol agents, the Uvalde Volunteer Fire Department and Uvalde Emergency Medical Services arrived in the area of Chalk Bluff Park off of Highway 55 to help search for the helicopter. Authorities located the crashed helicopter around daybreak, the Sheriff's Office said. The San Antonio Fire Department deployed 10 members of its Technical Rescue Team to assist the Federal Aviation Administration with the investigation, but they returned to San Antonio Sunday night. NTSB said in a tweet Sunday morning that the helicopter involved is a Bell 206B.Officials with the NTSB said they would not release any information about the crash until Monday. Pictures and video in the link: https://www.ksat.com/news/ntsb-inves...rash-in-uvalde |
How sad. Apparently a family-owned helicopter taking off from the family ranch; you would think that would be safe.
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Not many visual queues out there for night flying.
Im a fixed wing pilot primarily, currently doing PPLH; is a night rating applicable for heli pilots? Is it part of an IR or a standalone ticket? |
Originally Posted by 2016parks
(Post 10302496)
...a family-owned helicopter taking off from the family ranch; you would think that would be safe.
,...darker than ****! |
What kind night vision recovery time would be required after sitting in that high-intensity spotlighting so they could film the departure? Seems awfully intense for a pilot to then make an immediate departure into the rural night.
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Originally Posted by patagonia1
(Post 10302511)
currently doing PPLH; is a night rating applicable for heli pilots? Is it part of an IR or a standalone ticket?
FAA PPL(H) syllabus includes some night training and 3hrs night dual which gives you night VFR privileges. EASA PPL(H) does not and requires a separate Night Rating for which the prerequisites for the training are 100hrs heli post license issue and 60hrs heli PIC - so not something you can do during your initial training. That said, there is night VFR and flying in total blackness which are different types of flying. I’d give the latter a miss. |
Very very tragic.
Usual Q's, I guess: Was the cab stabilised? Was the pilot qualified AND current to fly at night? What was the Wx? |
Guys, this was FAA-land. No such thing as night qualified (everyone is, except LSA). And night currency to carry passengers requires no more than 3 times round the pattern at night in the last 90 days. Most airports are pretty well lit. If this was deep-dark then i might as well be IMc (how would you even know whether it was? - maybe from the reflection of the lights but that's about it). Assuming the pilot was a CPL then even if he wasn't instrument rated, he would have 3 hours of hood time. But how recently?
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NTSB just finished a press briefing which I largely missed because I'm at the airport. In what little I did see, they said there was little or no fire, but dispelled notions of fuel exhaustion by saying there was a smell of fuel present and "crashes don't always result in fires." Apparently the aircraft went down only a mile or so from the takeoff point but it took them until daybreak to discover it after it had been reported as possibly down by a "aviation monitoring center."
A bit more at Kathryn's Report. |
I flew EMS out of San Antonio and we made very frequent trips to Uvalde area as we did lots of accident scene work as well as the usual hospital transfer business.
Trust me....it gets very dark outside of the towns as some Ranches out that way are larger than most UK Counties. When doing VFR flights at night which were quite common....I tended to follow the highways for a bit of surface light reference rather than rely upon instruments in the really dark areas. Add in some haze....and it could get interesting quick. West of Uvalde....the World ends until you get to Del Rio. I have taken off from Del Rio at 3AM....on a Gin clear night....and have seen the glow of the lights of San Antonio after just a few minutes in cruise. A Jet Ranger at night in that terrain....at almost 2AM....having taken off with the bright spotlights shining in your face as you departed....that is a very bad combination. Such a tragic loss to the families of the newly weds and the pilot. |
Something about helicopters and weddings that seemingly often don't end well.
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The way he leaves the ranch seems to indicate he wasn't comfortable with this night departure - instead of going vertical and transitioning to a safe climb, he meanders across the trees with absolutely no options if the donkey stops, barely gaining height.
If he continued in the same manner into complete darkness, it is no wonder this tragic accident occurred. |
The pilot has been variously identified in local media reports:
Gerald Green: The Pilot Gerald Green, 76, was a captain in the Army and fought in Vietnam. Green's, stepdaughter told Eyewitness News that he had been a private pilot for the Byler family for about 20 years. The father of five, including two stepdaughters, was recently married in April. He was described as a lively man who was very active, smart and funny. "He loved to just sit there and banter with you. It was never a dull moment with our dad. He is a great man," Greens, stepdaughter Amilyn Willard said. "He had a great impact on everyone he met." The same site elsewhere gives the name as Gerald Green Lawrence: Gerald Green Lawrence has been identified as the pilot in the helicopter crash that killed 2 newlyweds near Uvalde, Texas, just an hour and a half after the wedding. https://abc13.com/4618311/?sf201567478=1 Another local news report gives the pilot's name as Gerald Douglas Lawrence: Officials have identified the pilot of the helicopter that crashed early Sunday in rural Uvalde County, killing two newlyweds on the way to their honeymoon. Gerald Douglas Lawrence, 76, who was also killed in the crash, was taking the groom and bride, William Byler and Bailee Ackerman Byler, both 24, to a local airport, where they would fly to their honeymoon location, according to Judge Steve Kennedy, Justice of the Peace for Precinct 1 in Uvalde County. A possible hit in the FAA pilot database (but without a BH-206 type rating): Personal Information GERALD DOUGLAS LAWRENCE
1335 SERENE TRL TOMBALL TX 77375-4191 County: HARRIS Country: USA Medical Information: Medical Class: Second Medical Date: 3/2018 MUST WEAR CORRECTIVE LENSES. BasicMed Course Date: None BasicMed CMEC Date: None Certificates AIRLINE TRANSPORT PILOT FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR Certificates Description Certificate: AIRLINE TRANSPORT PILOT Date of Issue: 6/14/2010 Ratings: AIRLINE TRANSPORT PILOT ROTORCRAFT-HELICOPTER COMMERCIAL PRIVILEGES AIRPLANE SINGLE ENGINE LAND AIRPLANE MULTIENGINE LAND INSTRUMENT AIRPLANE Type Ratings: A/BH-14ST A/BH-222 A/EN-28 C/DC-3 Limits: ENGLISH PROFICIENT. BH-222 (VFR ONLY). |
I'm curious why BH-222 would be listed as VFR only when the pilot had an ATP.
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Apparently a family-owned helicopter taking off from the family ranch; you would think that would be safe. |
"He had a great impact on everyone he met." Do you need a type rating for a 206? I didn't think so, it's under 12500 lbs. I'm curious why BH-222 would be listed as VFR only when the pilot had an ATP. |
Originally Posted by gulliBell
(Post 10302677)
I'm curious why BH-222 would be listed as VFR only when the pilot had an ATP.
(g) Aircraft not capable of instrument maneuvers and procedures. An applicant may add a type rating to an airline transport pilot certificate with an aircraft that is not capable of the instrument maneuvers and procedures required on the practical test under the following circumstances--
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Originally Posted by n5296s
(Post 10302686)
Do you need a type rating for a 206? I didn't think so, it's under 12500 lbs.
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An update from the NTSB briefing held this afternoon:
NTSB: Pilot in Uvalde helicopter crash that killed newlyweds 'very experienced'The priority for now is to recover the wreckage from its current location in Uvalde before examining it further. Author: David Lynch Published: 4:02 PM CST November 5, 2018 Updated: 4:33 PM CST November 5, 2018 UVALDE — Two days after a weekend helicopter crash killed a newlywed couple about 80 miles west of San Antonio, federal transportation safety investigators say the “precarious” site of the crash has prevented them from conducting a thorough initial examination. Craig Hatch, an air safety investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board, said on Monday afternoon that their priority at the start of the week was recovering the helicopter from its current site—on the side of a hill in Uvalde, a few miles from State Road 55. “Because of how it’s laid out on the side of the hill, we’re not really able to go into the helicopter,” he said, adding that debris was scattered over about 100 yards. Typically, investigators would document and examine a crash site as much as they can before altering anything, similar to a crime scene. However, Hatch said that’s nearly impossible to do in a way where they don’t “come tumbling down the side of the hill as well.” According to The Houstonian, a student-run newspaper at Sam Houston State University, Will Byler and Bailee Ackerman Byler were aboard the helicopter after getting married earlier on Saturday evening. Around midnight, first responders in the area were notified of a possible downed aircraft. “We definitely saw a helicopter in a terrible state,” said Texas Game Warden Rachel Kellner, who was one of the first responders on the scene, adding that there was little they could do immediately without any daylight. After recovering the wreckage from the site, NTSB plans to conduct a detailed inspection “at a later time.” Hatch said that it typically takes at least a year for a final accident report to be released, in which the probable cause is specified. Usually, he says, a preliminary report is published about two weeks after the investigation begins. It’s also too early to tell whether weather played any substantial role in the crash. The investigator added that, along with examining the aircraft involved in incidents such as these, the NTSB also investigates the pilot’s flying history. In this instance, Hatch said the 74-year-old pilot was “very experienced (and) highly qualified,” adding he believed he had logged about 24,000 hours. https://www.kens5.com/article/news/local/ntsb-pilot-in-uvalde-helicopter-crash-that-killed-newlyweds-very-experienced/273-611451370 It is reported that the wreckage was found on the side of Park Chalk Bluff, a hill northwest of Uvalde. |
There was a time when it was possible to have an ATP License for Rotocraft in the USA that was limited to VFR. That has gone by the boards and now the ATP License requires the Intrument portion as an integral part of the License. We do have a Commercial Licence and a separate Instrument rating but the ATP includes the equivalent of the instrument rating. The end result is the same as in the UK. We view “Type Ratings” very differently than does the UK. We don’t have as many bureaucrats to feed as ya’ll do......yet! |
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