Heli Missing South of New Zealand
 

Fingers crossed they find these guys safe and well.

Missing Helicopter in New Zealand.

All three found alive after wreckage found by a fishing boat.

Article linked above has been updated with details

A good outcome.

The accident report will be an interesting read, particularly about the mission plan. That is a long way to fly over water at night and in bad weather and in such a remote part of the world. I wonder what their PNR was? Fuel calculations, and the rest of it.

I'm guessing the patient they went to collect made alternative transport arrangements and he's doing OK?

Gullibell - seems Hannibal was the one that found them on the beach. Now that would have been an interesting conversation

Any idea what machine they were in?

Pretty sure they would have a fair idea about what they are doing and have no doubt done it before. I guess with these sorts of operations there are always increased risks involved and sometimes crap happens.

Yeah....they've had all night to think about it and get their story straight. Anyway, all is well that ends well.

Amen to that Gullibell - four funerals down there in four months was more than enough.

Video posted on NZ Herald looks very much like a BK117 in the water.

Would a BK117 be an odd choice of aircraft employed in the role of single pilot IFR over water winching at night?

Surely SPIFR over water winching at night would be an odd choice - the type is irrelevant.

Three on board, pilot, medic, and maybe the winchoperator, who could be a partially trained "copilot" joe without a certificate, same as Australia SAR did for many years with the 139. In the UK they seem to put much bigger aircraft into the water with much more crew, so don't know how any of that relates here. Nobody had a PLB on them? They're smaller than a pack of cigarettes these days, and reliable. All the stuff that worked and didn't work, will be a good read.

The Winch Operator would not be carrying out the role of pilot monitoring, PNF, co-pilot (whatever you prefer to call it) whilst winching at night over water. The main reason that SAR operators do fly 2 pilot is that this type of flying is difficult at the best of times but night over water especially so.

Single pilot VFR night winching!! Any NVG or 4 -axis AP? If not it's an absolute recipe for disaster.

I suspect they had NVG. But good luck winching at night over water single pilot NVG without a capable doppler coupled 4-axis AP.

Watching the news last night they weren't going to winch over water at night. They were flying to Enderby Island and stay in a DOC hut overnight, waiting for the fishing boat to get closer to them. Then at daybreak winch the guy off the boat and then fly back to Bluff. For some reason they went into the water only a couple of KMs from their destination.