30th Nov 2022 crash, Mentone Victoria
 

Just happened, more details when they are published

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....129058d58.jpeg
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....85cd65e01.jpeg


https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....123447396.jpeg
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https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....0eb234f0f.jpeg

Must be an inexperienced aviation reporter, they forgot words like "plummet", "hero pilot", "narrowly avoided school" and so on.

Ironically he might have been trying to reach the neighboring property.. a school oval.


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....b7f1133509.jpg

"Its believed the helicopter is linked to a company called The Helicopter Group" - Farq these talking heads are bright - wonder what gave that away - maybe the big logo on the side of the fuel tank

3,000 feet between company hangar and crash site.

I would have been more interested in the 50’ between the roof, and the oval!
To quote Maxwell Smart: “Missed by THAT much!”

It was on a scheduled navigational training flight., Interesting, its come down on the same flightpath as the mid air collison between two fixed wings, what is it ten years ago and only yards from where they fell. I dont know why it was on that route, its not the normal approach for choppers. Choppers are usually a bit more to the s/w, to avoid the fixed wings operating in the circuit.

Hughes makes another helicopter type? A "296"... that would be a 350 7/8ths?

It's tough to crash in anything slower than that, hopefully the pilot is ok and there's more than air in the tank.

269 is the original type cert all versions are derived from.

well he is still alive, which is great !

Interesting to see that two of the main rotor blades are intact and look almost undamaged.

After ‘alighting’ on the roof he probably still had the collective jammed up under his armpit.

News last night reported he was a student returning to Moorabbin after a two hour navex.

A navex ending in a crashex...........

That means he pulled off a (near)perfect auto.

...To a slope landing.

Two hour flight with 25 US Gallons fuel capacity....might be a clue.

Fuel, like most liquids, can't be compressed. Sometimes forgotten is the fact that it also can't be stretched.

Thought a `2-hour navex` in a 269 would be a `wide circuit`...

Not necessarily SAS. In the photo attached to original post it appears to have 2 tanks which would give it total capacity of 66 gals with an average fuel burn of 12 gph.

Final report, still had at least 60 litres of fuel, engine had stopped prior to crash.

Findings
As the helicopter climbed to about 650 ft above ground level, the engine lost power. The reason for the power loss was not determined. A detailed examination of the engine and airframe was not performed, limiting the ability to identify the reason for the power loss

The power loss was not immediately recognised which limited the opportunities for a safe forced landing. During the forced landing, the helicopter did not have sufficient height to reach the selected landing area and collided with rooftops

https://www.atsb.gov.au/sites/defaul...63%20Final.pdf

Hmmmm - another one of life's "little mysteries"?

Can't find a defect report for the failure so .................?

ATSB seem to have taken a hell of a long time and money to basically say - let me see - "nothing".

29" on the MP gauge ? The absolute max is 27.2 before you go full throttle. I would suggest if the pilot had got to 29 inches then he would be vastly over pitching and the blades would be coning up at one hell of an angle and the ac would be descending. Had the pilot tried pulling too much power, overpitched and stuffed it in ?( hence a couple of the blades dont seemed to have hit the roof ( as going really slowly ). Would account for not determining power loss !!!

Perhaps this indicates the loss of power. Wouldn't ambient (~29") manifold absolute pressure be consistent with a normally aspirated engine, not running or low rpm per the report, possibly wide open throttle asking for power that's not there?

KMSS very possibly ( but the manifold pressure would show that if the engine had stopped) the engine at idle 1600 rpm is around 12 inches of MP but it would appear that from the investigation there was not a problem with the engine ????

H500 - Yes, not much to go on.

I noticed this in the report: "...a visual inspection of the engine cooling fan and fan shroud indicated that the engine was not running at the time of the accident. The degree of damage to the rotor blades also indicated that the engine was providing little or no power."

I'm not a helicopter pilot but I wondered if the 269C has a governor which would have been opening the throttle as power output and engine RPM decayed for unknown reasons, leading to the increasing MAP...

I find it difficult to believe that a more serious investigation of the engine lack of power wasnt performed.Is there a root cause of engine problems with HIO 360D1A's ( i would like to know my school uses 3 of them ). The engine must have been providing some power otherwise the student would have to have been in immediate autorotation which doesnt seem to be the case. Looking at the pictures the engine area and scroll look pretty intact