French MP and billionaire Olivier Dassault dies in helicopter crash
 

Full story on the Beeb.

and here
 

Le décès d'Olivier Dassault et du pilote a été confirmé dimanche par Delphine Mienniel, procureur de la République de Lisieux, qui s'est rendu sur place. Le Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la Sécurité de l'Aviation civile a indiqué dans un tweet que l'appareil, un Aérospatiale AS350 Écureuil, s'était écrasé «au décollage», effectué «depuis un terrain privé».

The Bureau of Investigation and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety said in a tweet that the aircraft, an Aerospatiale AS350 Squirrel, had crashed "on takeoff", carried out "from private land".

Reported as F-GIBM (AS 350 B). Weather at nearby Deauville (LFRG):

His own AS 350 B reg F-GIBM .

Now, at last, le Petit Prince has some fine company along with Monsieur Antoine de Saint-Exupery....

- Edvard

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....c5d02cd858.jpg

Still baffled by the number of extremely wealthy people giving their life to rotorcrafts over the years..

Once again another VVIP flight with a single pilot, why do people with all the money in the world keep doing this!!!

That said there have been many in-depth discussions on here regarding 2 pilot operations that have had some grim outcomes

More information here,

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/248616

Well we don't know if it played a role but I'd agree that if you can afford 2 pilot + dual turbine seems a prudent approach to those flying contraptions.

Two pilot ops have killed just as many fancy passengers.

Man another wealthy guy dead in a helicopter crash :/

Helicopter generally are flown in more risk exposure environments and have many more critical parts than fixed wing aircraft. Just the nature of the beast so to speak and I assume most of the people who own and or use helicopters know the increased risk. I remember in 1970 an old US Army pilot telling me helicopter accident losses in Vietnam almost the same as those lost in combat.

This only seems to kill twice as many pilots.

Photo of emergency services responding on a very dark night. I think they'll wrap this investigation up quite quickly. Probably nothing new here.

Olivier Dassault was an extremely accomplished pilot, graduate of the French Air Force academy and rated on many aircraft. I don't know for sure, but I would be very surprised if he was not rated on his own helicopter. Someone else I knew always flew his own turbine helicopter with with another pilot, basically two crew operations.

The crash happend during daylight before sunset around 18:00 LCL, SS 18:50
According to the S/N the AS350 was built in the early eighties!

Skadi

It was CAVOK, about 10kts of wind and more than an hour before official night. Disorientation would be a stretch here.

One can only imagine what having the billionaire aircraft owner and pilot’s employer as an actual crew member might do to CRM and/or any decision making process? 😳

Not a situation I’d like to be in.

It was a chartered helicopter:

https://www.abchelico.com/#3

skadi

The machine operator is Dolijet and "D assault Oli vier" is the sole shares owner, surely that makes it his own.... They hit a tree on take off...
May they rest in peace, both of them and thank you Mr Dassault for such contributions to a shared passion, Aviation.

I think I know who you are refering to when mentioning your friend flying with a pro in the left seat... it is an insurance imposition and Show-Business requirement.

Alicopter beat me to it regarding ownership through Dolijet. But I would be surprised if he and I are thinking of the same person regarding always flying with another pilot, although the point about insurance is a good one. Tragic ending, but what an aviation life Dassault had. I cannot think of any other billionaires who were Air Force fighter pilots....role model for my next life! By the way some of the speculation and opinion passed off as gospel on this short thread has been up there with PPRune's best traditions.

I think that what makes the difference is not a second pilot, but the discipline of an AOC operation.

But is that not what abchelico would be offering? it seems that Dassault owned the machine through Dolijet and quite probably had it managed and chartered out through abc with an AOC. We will find out soon enough what licence the other pilot had and what the currency and experience of both occupants was. But the Leicester City owner's very public crash and the one taking off in the Bahamas at night are but two examples where having two pilots and an AOC did not make a difference.

Ouest France posted an update with more details (translated)

The first elements of the investigation indicate that "the takeoff was atypical. There is no evidence yet to confirm that the helicopter was not in the same location as usual. But instead of taking off at 90 degrees, rising off the ground at a right angle, the helicopter instead took off at a 45-degree angle and struck the branch of a tree. One blade was sectioned and the occupants of the helicopter were ejected. "
A blade from the craft, which "was not recent", "hit a tree," the prosecutor also said.
...
The pilot, Jean-Claude Bedeau, was born on February 25, 1947 (74 years old) in Paris. “He had had a career as an airline pilot. "

-50%
https://www.ouest-france.fr/normandi...ypique-7179059

Typical owner deal is that the aircraft may be used by the AOC holder when the owner does not need it. When the owner needs it is then still operated by the AOC holder but as a private flight (ORO.AOC.125 explained here https://xcaviation.wordpress.com/201...on-et-vol-ifr/ if you read French ) and so part CAT regs are not mandatory anymore, the ops manual can be as simple as "just use part NCC/NCO regs" . In that case the pilots were too old anyway to fly under part CAT operation
Isn't the accident you are referring to due to a mechanical failure of the tail rotor?(*) Anyway there is no way to be 100% sure that there won't be any accident ever, I'm just convinced that the discipline of a part CAT operation does increase safety a lot compared to part NCC/NCO operation. The fact that all the paperwork of the flight must be stored and available for inspection and is actually inspected, the mandatory line checks, the currency of the crew , the event reporting system etc.
The 74 years old pilot was certainly not as current as a part CAT pilot.
(*)EDIT Yes it was according to AAIB preliminary report. At 0 speed and low height, no crew can do much when such a thing happens . Standard procedure does not work at low height/speed, and the failure has no reason to happen at a reasonable speed.

The 74 year old pilot (if confirmed) does suggest a private flight. My experience of this kind of operation was the owner (who was type rated) choosing to have a professional pilot along at all times. The professional pilot of course flew other charter operations single pilot. Appears to be a different case here. Two very experienced aviators down and a sad way to go.

There is quite a lot of (also unconfirmed) speculation in the French press which does indeed paint a somewhat different picture. Dassault had apparently acquired the helicopter quite recently and was said to be taking instruction from the other pilot, who was an ex Air France captain. The ground was wet, leading to the aircraft landing in a less than ideal position for the subsequent takeoff. Who was flying at the time of the takeoff is unclear and may be hard to ascertain. In any case the takeoff was reported to be unusual and different from previous departures with the blades then impacting a tree. Whether the late hour, and concerns about completing the flight by nightfall played a role were also considered. One view was that there were an unfortunate set of circumstances leading up to the crash.

Maybe it has to do with the feeling of guilt? The social pressure to not use and display your wealth to any real advantage.

Not a stranger on these pages.

Rumor mill has that they indeed landed (and departed) from an unusual spot as the ground was soaked.
Also the flight was probably illegal as there is a curfew in France at 1800. All VFR flights are to terminate before that.

Missed the part supporting the statement of “two very experienced aviators” in the context of a helicopter accident. Was this area “confined” - in the Canadian context of the word, not Texan, and if so what was their relevant experience in such an operation. Experience flying off a runway is irrelevant.

The France 3 article linked on the Aviation Safety Net page shows a map of the approximate crash location - on one side of the road is a large house with an oblong field surrounded by trees - the talk of taking off in an unusual direction may be lifting out of that area across the field instead of down it.

It wouldn't take much of a drift in that case to get too close to the trees either ahead or behind and a TR or MR strike could easily have disastrous consequences.

Still no picture of incident !

VFR flight are not treated differently than IFR flights.
There are seven ways to leave home legally
Art. 4.-I.-Tout déplacement de personne hors de son lieu de résidence est interdit entre 20 heures et 6 heures du matin à l'exception des déplacements pour les motifs suivants, (...)
« 1° Déplacements à destination ou en provenance :
« a) Du lieu d'exercice ou de recherche d'une activité professionnelle et déplacements professionnels ne pouvant être différés ;
« b) Des établissements ou services d'accueil de mineurs, d'enseignement ou de formation pour adultes mentionnés aux articles 32 à 35 du présent décret ;
« c) Du lieu d'organisation d'un examen ou d'un concours ;
« 2° Déplacements pour des consultations, examens et soins ne pouvant être assurés à distance et ne pouvant être différés ou pour l'achat de produits de santé ;
« 3° Déplacements pour motif familial impérieux, pour l'assistance aux personnes vulnérables ou précaires ou pour la garde d'enfants ;
« 4° Déplacements des personnes en situation de handicap et, le cas échéant, de leur accompagnant ;
« 5° Déplacements pour répondre à une convocation judiciaire ou administrative ;
« 6° Déplacements pour participer à des missions d'intérêt général sur demande de l'autorité administrative ;
« 7° Déplacements liés à des transferts ou transits vers ou depuis des gares ou aéroports dans le cadre de déplacements de longue distance ;

172510,

1800-0600. there are a couple of extra exceptions on the attestation de déplacement dérogatoire now too.

This is why I don't look at pprune any more.
So many armchair experts. You were not in the aircraft, you do not have any idea what was going on, wild guesses as to what the dynamic was between the pilot and owner are just bull****.
All of this does nothing to help. let investigators do their jobs, they know what they are doing and all of this speculation does nothing for the families of those killed.

Sir with respect,

If this is the reason you no longer look at PPRuNe it maybe time to hang up your boots and delete your profile....Agreed some ‘rumours and speculation’ on this site often are full of BS but when you look through that you will see the many many discussions that are extremely beneficial for many users on this site.

Maybe time for you to sit back in your armchair and read a good novel... hopefully nothing to do with aviation!!!!

And yet here you are...

Ouest France (Touques)
10/03/2021
Translated https://translate.google.com/

Death of Olivier Dassault near Deauville. The helicopter, "broken in two", was evacuated
.... snip
At the crash site, the helicopter, which struck a tree on takeoff and "was snapped in half with the tail on one side and the cockpit on the other," was removed on Tuesday (March 9). "The debris were evacuated and transported to the Bureau of Investigation and Analysis (BEA) at Le Bourget," said Procurator Delphine Mienniel.
-50%
https://www.ouest-france.fr/normandi...lisees-7181407

BEA Twitter link (with pictures)

RIP 2

Fate is the hunter. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh.