|
Let’s not belittle the thread by extolling the virtues of flying in the old days - we’ve already agreed that regular tooling about at night is not an issue if you do it often enough. The fading of flying skills - If present in the first place - is a known issue but rarely addressed due to the “it will only happen to someone else” syndrome. I have a hunch (rumour network) that there is more to this incident than meets the eye - I suspect that the ‘medevac’ element might have affected the go/no-go decision-making matrix...... |
Originally Posted by EESDL
(Post 10511902)
Let’s not belittle the thread by extolling the virtues of flying in the old days - we’ve already agreed that regular tooling about at night is not an issue if you do it often enough. The fading of flying skills - If present in the first place - is a known issue but rarely addressed due to the “it will only happen to someone else” syndrome. I have a hunch (rumour network) that there is more to this incident than meets the eye - I suspect that the ‘medevac’ element might have affected the go/no-go decision-making matrix...... Flying a fully IFR equipped 139 on a clear night from the Bahamas to Ft Lauderdale should have been easy money. |
This event has so many echoes of the G-LBAL AW139 crash 5 years ago, which helped to push EASA into creating the "non-commercial complex" operations rules. I would not be surprised if findings will uncover contributing factors such as no ops manuals, lack of SOPs, no MCC training......etc!
|
Originally Posted by Non-PC Plod
(Post 10511930)
This event has so many echoes of the G-LBAL AW139 crash 5 years ago, which helped to push EASA into creating the "non-commercial complex" operations rules. I would not be surprised if findings will uncover contributing factors such as no ops manuals, lack of SOPs, no MCC training......etc!
|
Agree - if aircraft/pilot were serviceable |
Whatever happened here, sometimes training and a full specification aircraft don't stop a helicopter from going in..remember the CHC AWSAR aircraft that ran into a light house building in Ireland?
|
Many of us have done thousands of these black night departures without an FD and fully coupled AP. Hopefully the FDR and CVR will clear up the mystery. |
Lack of situational awareness is a problem for all of us. I just took some people on a canoe trip in Northern Maine. We drove two hours beyond cell phone coverage to the start of the trip. Then went down a river, high water and a current that meant return impossible. Water was so fast that we had to snatch the canoes from a steep bank at the first night camp site. If anyone had missed the landing.... The point is that it is easy to get in over your head in any endeavor.
Rich guys have much more opportunity for everything, including getting into trouble. Seems as if there should be a rich guy survival class. What was the right answer to this situation? What were the alternatives? Assuming that the medical emergency was acute, not just uncomfortable. Was it possible to get a medevac from Florida or Nassau? Would that medevac company have been a better qualified operation? I have no idea but Monday morning thinking says that this information should have been part of a Bahama out island SOP. On the other hand no one appreciates being restricted by more rules and regulations. But wouldn't it be nice to know where the line is. I just googled some medevac companies. They do brag about their NVG and IFR training. But I saw no mention of when and if they operate one or two pilot, how they handle dispatch, what crew rest rules they follow... |
Can we assume the helo took off from the mainland at night and landed at night in the Bahamas?
What kind of place did they land at? Could they have unknowingly hit the tail rotor on something on landing or taking off from the Bahamas? |
Why are flying skills considered old-school?
The training and licensing system is clearly not fit for purpose if you can get and maintain a professional pilots licence and not be able to keep the aircraft right side up in whatever conditions you find yourself in. If this paucity of ability is as widespread as many here attest, we will only see more of this type of accident and it may go some way to explaining the high level of EMS CFITs in the US. |
Crab,
One school of thought is automation has caused problems....more pilot error accidents....and the cure has been....more automation. Hands on flying skills....which I suggest also includes handling the "automated systems"....are perishable skills. If you do not use them....you lose them. https://99percentinvisible.org/episo...-paradox-pt-1/ |
Children of the Magenta. An old one but well worth a watch if you have not seen it yet. |
Another sad event who shouldn't happen...
Companies are pushing for automation.
They think it is key factor to avoid trouble when we gone become incompetent to hand fly an aircraft. It is a problem everywhere and a gigantic one in the airline industry. I feel now that I don't know if I am safe now when I fly an airline because I don't if the guys in front will be able to really fly the aircraft if they have a major problem (we have seen that in many occasion....) When you take-off in those conditions, you really have top prepare your mind about you should do, what is important, what procedure you will have. Taking-off during the day can be done "mechanically" without thinking about anything, there is no way it is possible to do that at night. Many people do not fly at night or under-estimate the difficulty of night flying. The transition from the take-off area to total darkness can be very surprising and difficult to manage and in this case you go from having some light during take-off to pitch black. If you are not prepared mentally, it is a recipe for disaster and it doesn't matter if you have experience. As the other guys said, with a 139, even if you are not current or not used to do that, it shouldn't be difficult. Pre-select 2000ft, prepare yourself to accelerate to Vy, select ALTA at Vy and the aircraft brings you to 2000 ft at the speed you had when you made the selection. You are flying a 139, not a 206, you should know all system available to help you and use them when you need it. It is sad to see that even with modern aircraft who have a lots of tools available to save you, we still end up with 7 persons dead. |
But we have had automation in helicopters for many years and as long as people are taught how to use it and how to fly without it if it goes wrong there shouldn't be an issue.
If pilots are so rubbish on the sim checks why aren't they failing and being sent for more training. It seems as though we are all asleep at the wheel here, allowing the standard of piloting to reduce but doing nothing about it. The children of the magenta is a very real problem and it often seems that the information presented to the pilot is as a result of an engineers design rather than a pilots need. You have to learn and understand how the designers think rather than have the right information, easily presented and with the minimum number of button presses. |
Originally Posted by [email protected]
(Post 10512157)
But we have had automation in helicopters for many years and as long as people are taught how to use it and how to fly without it if it goes wrong there shouldn't be an issue.
If pilots are so rubbish on the sim checks why aren't they failing and being sent for more training. It seems as though we are all asleep at the wheel here, allowing the standard of piloting to reduce but doing nothing about it. The children of the magenta is a very real problem and it often seems that the information presented to the pilot is as a result of an engineers design rather than a pilots need. You have to learn and understand how the designers think rather than have the right information, easily presented and with the minimum number of button presses. I've seen blatant failures in the sim yet the pilot has passed, I think at the moment itspartially down to bums on seats and a massive shortage. |
I feel now that I don't know if I am safe now when I fly an airline because I don't if the guys in front will be able to really fly the aircraft if they have a major problem (we have seen that in many occasion....) Sometimes it is a very simple problem and one that should not be difficult to handle that gets them. Far too often the aircrew has a lot of help from the design engineers, tech writers, company management and certifying authorities when it comes to causing an accident. In response to Crab....one Sim outfit I worked for....we did not "pass" folks unless they met our standards. I once failed the Chief Pilot of a major oil company....and got absolute support from my management. The second Sim outfit I worked for....had a much different view of it. If you determined you would not be able to "pass" a Student....he got transferred to another instructor. Later we had a several major operators lease time in the Sim and they did their own training and checking and we just ran the Sim for them. Oddly....they. never failed anyone. |
I just joined this forum to add a little to this thread. I'm DOM for a high end corporate flight department, an aircraft owner and pilot. Our "little toys" corporate hangar is next door to Cloud 9's corporate hangar at F45 in Jupiter, FL. I knew Geoff as a hangar-neighbor, and we would talk when ever we saw each other.
I understand it's easy to complain about the waining "skills" in today's batch of pilots. But I can tell you first hand that Geoff was an absolute professional, with top tier hands on flying skills. I'm finding it exceedingly difficult to speculate on pilot error being the cause. These 2 pilots flew regularly in local conditions, day+night, understood them exceptionally well, and displayed professionalism always. Not the type to be distracted into CFIT shortly after a night takeoff. We've all heard common airport chat such as: "that idiot is going to kill himself or someone else". Geoff and Dave were NOT those people and never had such things said about them. We never expected this. Geoff managed his business and his flying with the utmost professionalism. I need to go out to the hangar this morning, and I dread it, this really hurts. I was out there the other day, the sadness is palpable, the missing pilots weigh heavily on our souls. Not one of us has ever had a bad thing to say about them. |
Sounds like there was only one pilot and a mechanic on board at the time. And not the ‘regular’ pilot, possibly. But that’s all my guesswork from reading here. |
You'd think a billionaire could buy himself a higher quality operation. Part 91, was not a "Medevac" in our SAR/Commercial definition of the term. That term is being tossed around now by the media to give a sense of sacrifice and justification for not waiting a couple hours until dawn. In most jurisdictions (Canada 604.02, EASA for sure) there is a requirement for private large airplane, turbine, or multi-engine aircraft to operate to a regulator-approved standard. I wonder what the oversight was here. Cujet , fill us in on how this was a professionally managed flight. Airbubba quoted the Nassau Guardian article that the locals saw it splash in at 2am, searched the water until 5am, and then were told it had arrived in Florida and all was fine. Then later in the afternoon at 2 pm, 12 hours later, when it was apparent it had not arrived, the search began again. So what was that, no flight plan, no sat tracking, no flight following, no customs arrangement in Fort Lauderdale? Last time I flew a helicopter from Nassau to KPBI I had to have all of those things, plus ADIZ contact and previously filed eAPIS. If we can be forgiven for thinking it sounds Mickey Mouse, perhaps you can explain how things are done there. |
when I was a check airman at a major world airline more than 15 years ago, I flew with many pilots with poor BAW. My policy was that I expected a new copilot to be able to manage a descent and approach without the autopilot or flight management. The pendulum was swinging. In the past, military pilots generally had no difficulty but with the advent of electric jets, F16 at that time things were changing. Also, the airline would let people bid what they wanted and guys would bid the FB, second copilot position when they had senority to hold FO on less desirable trips. On international trips with usually two legs per trip, the Captain got a landing and the FO got a landing. FB got currency in the simulator. I flew with an FB who had 3000 767 hours and 30 landings in the actual aircraft.
I flew with a small Japanese airline also. The FOs came to the seat with 250-300 total time in all aircraft types. But, they often got three legs a day, 15 days a month, night time often, sometimes non precision approach, mildly mountainous terrain, lots of inclement weather. They became highly skilled in quick order. |
I’d have to agree with that sentiment. If you can afford the multi-million chopper- and goodness knows what else- you ought to have the chops to insist on a fully-kitted department, fixed and rotary. And understand its limitations.. |
In theory, but I've been for interviews with people who have the money to pay for hangars and aircraft yet cheapskate in weird areas such as qualified and sensible pilots. Like buying a Leica and putting cheap film through it.
|
My parents have a friend—a former Fortune 500 CEO with a a Falcon 50 at his disposal who looked down upon pilots...considered them part of the ‘help’. Not saying this ever happened in this case, but it was a bit shocking to learn of his disdain. |
Originally Posted by FIRESYSOK
(Post 10512247)
Sounds like there was only one pilot and a mechanic on board at the time. And not the ‘regular’ pilot, possibly. But that’s all my guesswork from reading here. There were two pilots on board, Geoff Painter and David Jude, their backgrounds are discussed earlier in this thread. Despite the repeated references in the local media, it appears that there was no 'mechanic' on board and one does not show up in the lists of fatalities from various sources. From The Palm Beach Post: The operator of a Palm Beach Gardens helicopter service was piloting the multi-million-dollar chopper that crashed in the Bahamas on July 4, killing himself and six others, including coal billionaire and part-time northern Palm Beach County resident Christopher Cline, authorities said Saturday. Geoffrey Painter, 52, and David Jude, 57, also killed in the crash, operated Cloud 9 Helicopters, based at the North County Airport, according to the company’s web page and state corporate records. Bahamian authorities initially had suggested Jude, a West Virginia and Juno Beach resident who is one of Cline’s regular corporate pilots, was at the controls of the Agusta AW139 that dropped into shallow waters near Grand Cay, about 115 miles northeast of Palm Beach, and that the seventh person was an unidentified “Florida mechanic.” But on Saturday, the Royal Bahamas Police Force posted a list of all seven victims, and listed Painter as the pilot. https://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/2...hed-in-bahamas Here is the list of victims released yesterday by the Royal Bahamas Police Force: UPDATE Saturday 12.20pm: Police have officially identified the seven people who were killed in Thursday’s helicopter crash: (1) Geoffrey Lee Painter DOB 30-10-66 of Barnes Staple, United Kingdom (Pilot) (2) Kameron Nicole Cline DOB 21-03-97 of Washington, DC (3) Brittney Layne Searson DOB 16-08-97 of Palm Beach, Florida (4) Jillian Nicole Clarke DOB 07-10-96 Los Angeles, Califonia (5) Davis [sic] Jude DOB 02-12-62 of Kentucky (6) Wykyle Delaney Lee DOB 18-06-96 of Washington, DC (7) Christopher Cline DOB 05-07-58 of New York. |
I stand corrected. Two pilots. |
Having the benefit of flying for a number of operators in my career I think that I have probably experienced the whole spectrum of training/currency requirements. The major operators seem to have the best initial and recurrent training systems but these are also the pilots who are probably getting the most regular exposure to flying. An average in my experience would be 5-600 flying hours per year offshore and 2-300 hours SAR/EMS.
I have also worked the VVIP circuit flying for seriously wealthy people and the average was maybe 50-100 hours per year with only the 6 monthly OPC to maintain any kind of currency. Although the initial hiring qualifications were high there were minimal flying or recurrency requirements. Certainly nowhere near comparable to non-VIP operations. The expectation was that not having flown at all for maybe 6 weeks I could depart from the deck of a super yacht over water at night single pilot and get these people to wherever they wanted to go with little notice - or my employer would be told I was 'not suitable'. Not all owners are so ignorant of course and I now work for one who understand the correlation between currency and safety. I was offered a job with the Haughey 139 operation but turned it down as I knew that I would not last long there. |
Let's put a "human" touch on this tragedy......which it surely was.
Seven good people have been killed, some of them very young and just getting started in life, one an extremely successful businessman, and two well regarded members of our own community. These sad occurrences we discuss here over the years all have such loss in them no matter where they happen or who they involve. If you are charged with the safety of others.....it is a duty that transcends all other responsibilities accruing to your employment. We have to be every mindful of that as we go about our work. It is heart breaking to see such promise in young folks lost this way. I offer my Condolences to those who are having to cope with the loss of their loved ones as I know they need all the support they can get. Head bowed....moment of contemplative thought....and a silent prayer in hope those lost have found a place of Peace. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ris-Cline.html |
Mistake happen to the best !
Well said SASless !
Cujet, we are not saying that those pilots were not professional or competent. As a pilot, you spend you life avoiding mistake, you will always do some and you always hope they gone be minimal. If you read accident reports, full reports with all details, in most cases, pilots had experience, were competent and professional. You just need a very small period time during a flight to do something wrong who could be " hola, that was close " or "now it's to late" with a bad result. Pilots are human, not machine, you can fly 10 years without a single mistake or do a bunch of them in a short time. You never know, sometimes, you get to comfortable in what you do and it brings you on the wrong side because you did not anticipate the problem. |
AW139 floats deployement
Originally Posted by Sir Korsky
(Post 10511308)
Recommended gear up to ditch. Float switch arms collective manual override. Immersion should auto activate floats with float switch on or off.
The automatic operation will occur at ditching thanks to immersed pressure switch located: one in each main landing gear bay and two in the nose wheel well. As they are pressure switches, it might not activates automatically if the impact was in inverted flight as possibly mentioned earlier. Regards, Jerome |
On AW139, the Fly Away kicks in only if a collective axe FD mode is selected and coupled.
|
Originally Posted by Gyro139
(Post 10511767)
Aircraft was at least Phase 5 with 4 axis enhanced FD. This means that TU (transition up) would have been available to them from zero speed, a great tool in the event of disorientation after departure and below 60kts when the traditional FD modes are not available. As to the safety flyup function, this requires the Collective mode of the FD to have been engaged/captured.
July 2 was the new moon. So.... No moon/deep, dark nigh + transition from over-land to over-water = catastrophic disorientation. It happens down here all the time unfortunately. |
Originally Posted by [email protected]
(Post 10512157)
But we have had automation in helicopters for many years and as long as people are taught how to use it and how to fly without it if it goes wrong there shouldn't be an issue.
If pilots are so rubbish on the sim checks why aren't they failing and being sent for more training. It seems as though we are all asleep at the wheel here, allowing the standard of piloting to reduce but doing nothing about it. The children of the magenta is a very real problem and it often seems that the information presented to the pilot is as a result of an engineers design rather than a pilots need. You have to learn and understand how the designers think rather than have the right information, easily presented and with the minimum number of button presses. |
Even though we all fly very sophisticated equipment we have to keep in mind the primitive, basic hand flying...or as we say in fixed wing, stick and rudder flying.
No collection of cutting edge equipment can undo failure of the human pilot when we are tired, it's deep night, we are pressured to make a flight, we are making an urgent medical flight and it's a moonless black sky as we make our black hole departure over open ocean waters. |
Originally Posted by [email protected]
(Post 10512157)
..If pilots are so rubbish on the sim checks why aren't they failing and being sent for more training.
As an instructor and a very small cog in a much bigger multi-cog machine, my approach to the matter is teaching tail rotor and other malfunctions that might seriously bite you, well, there is not enough time for that. The training time is far better spent on teaching the recurrent pilot trainee what buttons to push and when, on a properly serviceable helicopter with no malfunctions, because getting that wrong is far more likely to happen and ruin their day than the tail rotor falling off. |
Originally Posted by malabo
(Post 10512249)
1) You'd think a billionaire could buy himself a higher quality operation. 2) Cujet , fill us in on how this was a professionally managed flight. If we can be forgiven for thinking it sounds Mickey Mouse, perhaps you can explain how things are done there. 2) Points taken, little professional about the flight. I can only guess that Geoff felt significant pressure to complete the mission. The reason for the flight is rumored (at F45) to be that Cline's daughter had acute alcohol poisoning. I posted the very same points (emergency, night, international, vfr, over water, no flight plan, no communication) on another forum last night. I added that I believe such conditions leave little room to deal with any additional problems. Mechanical failure or a technical issue is my guess at this point. |
To those speculating as to the pilots abilities: I’ve spent time flying with Geoff and there is no one I would want by my side in an emergency situation more than him. I have seen him practice IFR night flying to stay proficient in anticipation of upcoming flights when he has felt he was out of practice. As for old school flying skills: he had (I believe) over 10,000 hours in Robinson’s (in addition to those in Augusta’s and numerous manufacturer training courses in other helicopters) and told me numerous stories of emergencies he avoided through old school flying skills. He was not easily flustered and he reacted immediately not just quickly. Based on what I have read in the news, and here: I don’t think we can judge him or Dave for agreeing to fly or Cline for asking them to (if that is what happened as the news seems to imply) in light of the circumstances—would you not do everything you can to help your child if you could? Would you not want to help get a sick person off an island with no hospital, particularly if you are a capable pilot in an exceedingly advanced aircraft? However, such circumstances can aggravate the smallest problem into a fatal one. I’m sure the investigation will reveal more telling information but I think that sympathy is the answer here, not just saying this could have been avoided had they followed the rules. That is obvious but it is also a risk that everyone assumed as soon as they stepped in that helicopter in that situation. My heart aches for all of them and for the families of the girls, Cline, Geoff, and Dave. May they all Rest In Peace. I do agree with the posts about how automation is not the answer to accidents, that human awareness and appropriate response is—and I say the same about cars. However, people often want the best toy out there, assuming advanced automation is equivalent with safety and pilots for those operations are thus obliged to use those advanced machines, as the manufacturer advertises. Demand better training of pilots, demand more user friendly cockpits, demand simpler operations but do not put that blame on two pilots who are in fact proficient in their old school flying skills. |
cujet wrote:
Mechanical failure or a technical issue is my guess at this point. |
Originally Posted by industry insider
(Post 10512591)
cujet wrote:
Its not my guess but I will humbly be corrected if I am wrong. |
So it sounds like unscheduled flight, where the pilots were not properly prepared and rested, when the conditions were challenging, their responses were at not going to be optimum, and the stress of a medical evacuation.
|
Knowing Geoff as i did, my inclination lies towards a tech or mechanical failure, as mentioned above.
"unscheduled flight, where the pilots were not properly prepared and rested, when the conditions were challening, their responses were at not going to be optimum, and the stress of a medical evacuation." No worse than many of us have done in the military. Maybe one occasion where the automation got in the way. |
| All times are GMT. The time now is 05:29. |
Copyright © 2024 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. All rights reserved. Use of this site indicates your consent to the Terms of Use.