Vegas helicopter crash
 

Heard about a chopper went down at Boulder City airport with injuries just now.

Info thats online

As a passenger, if there is any single i'd have to crash in, the h130 would be it.

Latest details below:

Papillon Grand Canyon Helicopters Hard Landing

Fly Safe, always :ok:

Papillon have a long reputation!

Without knowing the circumstances that is a bit un-called for.

Might you wait a bit to see what might have caused the accident first.

Unless it has the optional crash resistant fuel tank the 130 is the last I would want to crash in as they have a nasty habit of bursting into flames.

They have crash resistant fuel tanks.

7 people in a 130 must be tight, purely as a matter of interest what would the seating configuration be?

3 in the front, 4 in the back.


https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....1a8c3568b2.png

I made no comment on this latest accident…..

3 in front 4 in back. I flew this configuration in an AS350 for 7 years in Hawaii. The EC130 has a 7 pax 1 pilot version also:

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....cef6c9a897.jpg

Update on injuries
front pax - broken leg
rear pax - broken sternum, fractured pelvis, fractured spine L1,L2,L3
rear pax - broken sternum , fractured spine c1
rear pax - fractured c3

N835GC second of three ship charter , was hover taxing along Taxiway at about 1.5m above ground, as it approached a small asphalt road to head into apron area it started to yaw to the left 10m prior to the road , suggesting maybe not pilot induced. The first 90deg of yaw was slow then it become quick and the aircraft pitched around. About 3.5 revolutions it hit the ground still rotating.

Running out of right pedal?What are they like Gordy in handling?

It's the same fenestron as an H135 effectively. Haven't heard it's an issue but......................hey.

Certainly not installed on earlier model EC130's. Machines produced from 1999 to 2012 have the good ol poly fuel tank that was installed on the 350 series since the 80's. They tend to rupture easily with a hard landing.
Most of the tour 130's in Vegas have been retrofitted or are newer models with CWFS.

Was that the one that caused an uncomfortable sloshing at about half full?

Showing your age there AC!

Wuz a T2 so tank is probably OK.

So, pretty heavy with full pax load and in a hover taxi - pretty high power setting needing a lot of right pedal - maybe a gust of wind from the left and insufficient right pedal (ie max) to control the yaw? just a suggestion.

If they were following another aircraft - Nev says part of 3-ship charter - could be downwash from one of the others.

I guess there was some climb involved during gyrations to cause injuries of that extent?

Which would appear to be the configuration in this incident, as the news reports are saying 8 on board. Edit - I now see conflicting accounts, so who knows!

I guess the “chop throttle, perform hover auto before the rotation gets too fast” didn’t work. Is the throttle on the collective? Never liked the throttle on the floor behind the collective.

I have not flown them, only a regular AS350 which as we all know has no issues with tail rotor---until they get stuck....

I happen to know that all the older Papillon AS350 machines were retrofitted, I assume they would have done the same on the 130's or bought the newer ones. I attended a briefing given by their DO that described the whole process.

As a company, they are extremely pre-active in safety.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....debd96b59.jpeg

Papillion retrofitted all their AS350's and EC130's as a direct result of the last fatal crash they had in Feb 2018 involving a EC130B4. This work was completed in August 2019.

The AS350/EC130, is not being delivered anymore without the CRFS installed.

As the comment to hard landing and rupture, I think very few accidents with the tank being ruptured would be passed off as a hard landing....

Albatross,

The ''throttle'' is on the collective in the EC130, and is simply a twist grip to select IDLE or FLIGHT

so, guess you are not a helicopter person?

helicopter person? What’s your point?!

As opposed to the poly tank rupturing from a "soft landing"? Why do you think they have retrofitted their fleet?

Nubian
Thanks for the information. I was just curious as I have never even been close to one. Spent a lot of time in Astars and Twinstars so was wondering about the throttle location in the EC130.
I made no comment re fuel tanks.

No worries. The B3 and newer variants are a lot easier than the ****ty patent with the Fuel Flow Lever on the floor...

As I vaguely recall the throttle on collective was the result of a large potential sale in the early 1980s of As-350s to the Australian military who insisted upon it or “ Sorry Mate! No sale! “

Went for a back seat ride in the 341 when they were demonstrating it to the Oz military sometime early 70's, the seniors were not impressed with the throttle location, on the overhead if I recall correctly, they wanted it on the collective.

Indeed they did. AS350BA's. Aus Navy training machines I believe.

Didn't the Aussies reject them in the end due to hyd-off handling qualities in the hover?

The DHFS ones, 350BBs also had collective mounted throttles.

Bearing in mind that the engine was mechanically connected directly to the main rotor gearbox through a centrifugal clutch and was constant speed in flight, there wasn’t quite so much point in having it on the collective anyway, unlike with a power turbine type of engine.

Not sure I follow the logic. I understand the drive principle but I don’t understand why manual throttle would be any different - you are just replacing the AFCU with your left hand and adjusting fuel flow to meet power demand. Doesn’t matter if the Ng is fixed or not?

Yes, there are a couple of emergencies on the Gazelle that require taking the throttle out of the gate and selecting a power manually.

The only difference is that on a free power turbine the datum maintained is usually Nf while on the fixed spool engine the datum is Ng - other than that the fuel flow is still altered to maintain that datum with the capability of a manual over-ride in case of malfunction.

It's certainly not as easy with a roof mounted throttle as it is with a collective mounted one though.

I know it was a mod offered for mil customers, but have never seen a civilian B2 or older with it. Don’t know about the left hand drive conversion AS350’s used by tour operators but maybe Gordy can answer if those also have this option.

Well it was probably this one photographed in October 1969 while being demonstrated: https://www.airhistory.net/photo/783/F-ZWRK