CHC AW 189s
 

Hearing a rumour that the CHC AW189s have been grounded in Karratha, Australia due to being inadvertently operated 200kg over weight? Anyone know anymore detail?

Excuse my ignorance...but grounding an R22 for being operated 200kg over weight I could understand, but a AW189, seriously?

Overweight is overweight! What would you expect? That'll be fine, mate ... crack on? Or an inspection to make sure you havent damaged something which is going to show it in 50 hours time?
Good grief!
:rolleyes:

In all of my years in this business I've never heard of grounding an aircraft for an over weight inspection...

Hence why if it did get off the ground some sort of inspection would be due...as for an 8 ton helicopter, I wouldn't have thought 200 kg over would cause much of a whimper from the airworthiness maintenance aspect.

How long might it have been routinely operated overweight? How much much stress might have all the different components been subjected to after an unknown number of cycles of perf class 1 & 2 takeoffs, helideck landings etc? If it was overweight, was it also way outside C of G?
Of course these questions have to be considered before you can release an aircraft back to service after it has exceeded its design limitations. What if it crashed tomorrow? Do you think the management staff would be justified in saying, "Well, we were only a bit illegal, as its a big aircraft, so we thought we would just ignore it and keep our fingers crossed".
Have you ever heard of a safety culture?

Apparently they did fine if no one noticed.
Bring the MGW to 8800 Kg then!

Just what might such an inspection begin to look for that would manifest itself visually?

This brochure shows an approved 300 KG upgrade in Max Gross Weight if I read it correctly.

https://www.leonardocompany.com/docu...89Offshore.pdf

I would be less worried about the "over weight" than" how and why" it happened!

But that 300kg upgrade will require additional equipment/modifications and/or adjustments to the performance graphs - that is what happened with the 139.

If the standard aircraft was fit for the additional weight increase then it would have been certified as such in the first place.

As Non- PC plod says - overweight is overweight and at the very least you need to assess how much and for how long and then carry out inspections and perhaps calculate time penalties for critical components.

What would happen if you crashed during a PC1 departure because you were outside the WAT graphs? What would your insurance company say and how long would your licence last - remember ass, tin, ticket SAS?

The 8600 Kg is already on.

Bit quick to jump into the Weeds are you Crab?

You assume of course the Pilots knowingly operated the aircraft 2.5% over the 8300 kg weight limit.

Perhaps they did not know....thus why would their "Ticket" be in jeopardy?

Now if like in the "Iron 41" S-61 Crash.....had the Operator provided the Pilot's bogus Weight and Balance and WAT Data....it would be the Operator and not the Pilots that were in violation.

As the weight was upped by 300 kgs....perhaps not as much damage was done as might be assumed.

Again....I am more concerned how such a thing happened and let the chips lay where they fall following the inquiry.

The Carson culprits wound up in the Gray Bar Hotel over their falsifying FAA and USFS documentation.

By the way....I lost a friend in that crash so I do fully grasp the significance of such issues.

As Crab says, they dont normally just "up" the weight without, for example, beefing up the landing gear. I have no idea what a post- overweight ops inspection might include, but it may not be purely visual. Maybe they would re-examine HUMS data, do some NDT on particular components etc.
SAS - I agree completely that there is something even more worrying in the SOPs if the aircraft are dispatched overweight, but for the airframe, you cant just treat it as if nothing has happened.

Operational Control weakness is what Malabo is referring too. The 139 overweight issue was directly due to the fact that they screwed up their W&B and never caught it. He isn't saying the 139 has weak controls.

They flew the 139's overweight for a number of weeks before the "anomaly" with the weight and balance was found and the aircraft were grounded pending Leonardo prescribing inspections for returning the aircraft to service.

I imagine the percentage over max gross would be the number they'd look at it for any penalties