EC-130 Crash California
 

CNN is reporting the crash of an EC 130 in California, with six fatalities. Not much detail yet...

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/10/us/mo...ash/index.html

That’s bad news…

I have driven between L.V. and Barstow CA quite a few times and there really isn’t much out there where this occurrence took place. Also given the weather that CA has been getting recently a dark night would be very dark…

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...ard-rcna138224

Nigerian Bank CEO was one of those killed.

Weather showed rain and snow in the area near the border.

Pilot and "safety pilot", flying a VFR B4 through mountains, at night, in weather, with Nigerian bankers on board. Is this real or a Darcy Hoover novel?

"Flight-tracking data shows the helicopter was travelling along the interstate about 1,000 to 1,500 feet (304.80 to 457.20 metres) above ground level, Graham said during a Sunday news conference. The aircraft made a slight right turn, turning south of the roadway, and the data then shows a gradual descent and increasing ground speed.

The wreckage site shows that helicopter hit the ground with its nose low at a right-bank angle, Graham said, adding that meteorologists have confirmed the weather included precipitation. The debris field was about 100 yards (91.44 metres) long."

I'll ask Darcy.

One of my friends, who runs an Aviation Safety consultancy business, based in Lagos, said he approached this bank last year to brief them on the merits of using Travel Risk Assessments for staff, but they were not interested. The word 'schadenfreude' has crossed his mind........

"National Transportation Safety Board member Michael Graham said at a news conference Saturday night. All six people on board — the pilot-in-command, a safety pilot and four passengers — were killed, Graham said."
safety pilot?
I see a can of worms here.

I don't think 212 man mentioned getting pleasure from someone dying but perhaps Karma would be more appropriate.

No can of worms.

Many "A" r "B" list types use agencis to find them charters these days---especially in the LA basin. Often times they require 2 pilots---hence the term "Safety Pilot" or some companies merely call it a "Pilots assistant" as technically only one person can log the time if the tyupe certificate does not require 2 pilots.

It is a common practice.

I have driven this route. No way in Hell I'd fly it at night in a VFR only helicopter!

I had my fill of night over the desert when I flew an R22 with my instructor from Scottsdale, AZ to Long Beach, CA two nights before my PPL checkride, and the night before that from Scottsdale to Tuscon, AZ, where I started to get disorientated just before the lights of Tuscon saved me.

What exactly is the function and/or duty of the “pilot assistant”? Monitor PIC heart rate and respiration? Twiddle thumbs? Distract the PIC? Can the assistant manipulate controls? What training (CRM) has/needs to be accomplished to operate with or as an assistant pilot? Does the operator have an SOP for this operating environment?

No, Jim. The "safety pilot" is merely a sandbag. He probably has a rating but has too few hours to be considered a PIC. So he rides along on flight where the customer requests/requires two pilots. At the destination, he hops out and unloads the pax and bags and makes sure nobody walks into the tail rotor (if it has one). If he's wearing a white shirt and epaulets, the customer won't ever know that he's not a fully-qualified Part-135 captain. If he's lucky, the return leg is empty and he actually can log some stick-time. I did this quite a lot in my younger days. I'm sure people still do. At the end of the day, it's still a single-pilot operation, and the PIC is the guy-in-charge, just as if the other guy wasn't there at all.

What's the purpose of requiring a sandbag? It doesn't appear to have benefitted the flight in question (incidental contributing factor?).

Yep, pprune is a rough sandbox.

LA basin has had its share of dead rich guys riding helicopters. Like 212man points out, where's the operational risk assessment and control on these type of charters?

Did the PIC have single-pilot night IFR experience in an unstabilized helicopter? How often did he practise inadvertent IMC low-level: check heading, climb 500', 180 turn, wait 30 seconds, descend? Those of us with that kind of experience tell me "hell no". Give me a de-iced 139 and I'll think about it.

They took the long way 'round, maintaining VFR, 1000-1500' above terrain, so they were thinking about it...

The "safety pilot" thing isn't completely new. Didn't Australia fly EMS 139 with a "qualified crewman" without even a license in the left seat? Some rich guys with their own helicopter and a license wisely bring along someone that knows what they're doing, done that. Still trying to wrap my mind around this operation being normalized from a regulator/flight safety perspective.


https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....b543747eb.jpeg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....1f1099a22.jpeg

Hit the ground 4 miles from the I-15 we think they were trying to follow, big oops.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....896b4c985.jpeg

How difficult can it be - while looking at a wide synthetic vision screen - to maintain a safe height AGL and a constant speed?

Disorientation.

4 years and a few days past the N72EX accident. How quickly we forget?

The USMC CH-53 crash happened almost on the exact same day as the S-76 crash 4 years ago and just a few days prior to the EC130 this month. All 3 weather/decision making related in mountainous terrain.

Unless you're prepared to do so?

Very!

So I guess it depends on the organization. The one I was involved with, the 2nd pilot was a rated pilot with a 135 checkride in the aircraft---either pilot could have flown the flight. Yes they were traiend on 2 pilot operations under our SOP. One would be polt flying, the other was PNF just like the airlines.
I canot speak for the operator involved in this accident as I do not know.

Thanks for the answer Gordy. Do you think your experience is more the norm or exception in the industry?

it makes perfect sense to me, when I get the family onboard, I always try to have somebody in the copilot seat that can land the aircraft in case I get suddenly disabled.

I remember one operator complaining that most his VIP charter were systematically requesting a twin engine heli, while they were satisfied with a single pilot crew, he was making the point that a single engine heli with a dual crew was actually safer.

Hmm, just how many accidents each year are there due to single pilot incapacitation?

Damn it, I just transferred $8000 to an account so I could collect my lottery winnings. I haven’t heard from them since the transfer it must have been this banker flying to get my winings.

How am I going to get my 20mil now?

Just curious, do you have dual controls in your car?

For those interested, here's a report on pilot incapacitaion: "It is noteworthy that 6 out of 16 episodes were attributed to psychiatric causes and another 5 were the result of nonspecific symptoms that may have had psychiatric contributing factors."

My experience of two-pilot light helo charters is that its driven by a complete absence of understanding of flight safety by the customer who demands it.
Some companies' policy requires their staff to be flown by two pilots and some indiciduals insist on it simply based on the false and unsubstantiated assumption that two must be safer than one. In all the flights I was involved in the 'other' pilot was a fully qualified line pilot just like the Captain but of course neither were trained or experienced in two-pilot ops, and on a couple of occasions there were CRM issues (one so serious that I declined to operate) that significantly compromised flight safety. Putting two single-pilot pilots together is a recipe for trouble and imho completely unacceptable. Include a non-pilot ground handler by all means, just not two one-man band pilots.
God knows I've seen the other side too, in airlines even after extensive CRM and human factors training many ex fast jet pilots (oddly never the Navy ones...) have been utter nightmares to fly with - persisting in being a one-man-band and refusing to include the copilot in a meaningful way.
By all means include a suitable ground handler - but never another single-pilot pilot.

Pilots were 22 and 25.
They were trying to do their job and please the employer.
Did they have any clues about the huge risk involved ?
Scudding at low level at night is playing Russian roulette.
So many got the same situation, trying to please and progress without the knowledge of what was coming.
There is no real night training done in reality, you see the same thing in general aviation.
Companies should have very strict minimum for nights, you don`t scud, but money is always more important.
I am sure the next step for them is going to be interesting...

It's likely there was no plan B or planned brief to stick to. That's one thing experience has taught me and that's stick to what was planned. It doesn't work all the time, but as soon as the doubt seed is planted, then I'm done. RIP fellas.

Sadly, probably not the norm.

For those going on about "sandbags" and "dual controls" etc. A second pilot is not there to take over in case of incapacitition, although he could I suppose. He is there to assist with the workload---navigation, radios, terrain avoidance, weather decisions, and CRM.....

I am reminded of the joke about going fishing with Mormons---always invite 2 of them, that way they will not drink your beer, they watch out for each other.

I am sorry, I do not get the logic.


1. N72EX

This was gross pilot incompetence. Fully qualified (in terms of license, recency) IFR-rated pilot and instructor, in a full IFR machine. Refusing or unable to mentally transition from VFR to IFR flying. Or simply hand the controls to George. I mean, it can't be that when tomorrow I take Lufthansa from Frankfurt to Munich, the airliner crashes. And people say, really bad, they entered cloud, and didn't they remember there was 100 years ago this pilot who also suffered spatial disorientation.

It is simply unacceptable that so many commercially rated pilots betray their employers by not being able to display basic skills.


2. Synthetic Vision

I made this argument before on these pages, I reckon maybe exactly 4 years ago:

- A current IFR rated pilot should be able to keep the blue side up, even without external visual cues, based on a standard 6-pack.

- We agree that a regular VFR pilot may struggle to integrate the information from the 6-pack into a mental picture and might suffer from spatial disorientation if no external visual cues.

- That same regular VFR pilot again is very much able to keep the sunny side up, if provided with external visual cues. In doing so they look at a screen the size of their cockpit window (the "windscreen").

- If those transparencies were replaced by a computer screen of the same size, displaying the outside world, our regular VFR pilot would equally have no difficulties.


All the above I hope is generally accepted. My point therefore is: What is the minimum size of that computer screen, so that the pilot's brain perceives the external visual cues needed to effortlessly maintain orientation in space?

Those who answer "never" will struggle to explain why things miraculously fall into place, once the computer screen reaches the same size as the windscreen. Clearly, there is a tipping point. It may be larger than the display size of a GI275, but smaller than "full screen" (ie, size of the windscreen).

Or it could simply be since the pilot of 72EX was the chief pilot of the charter company he knew they could only fly VFR legally, so he stayed "legal" and lost. Just like the company and pilots of the 130 here. Same story different day.

A screen replacing the windshield is so 20 years ago. Try and

https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/wireSt...pter-107246498

I hate when the news media invokes night/weather as the cause of the crash. Operational control, management guidance, regulatory negligence. Do we as an industry really expect a couple of young R44 tour/instructor pilots to have the experience skill and judgement to attempt a night marginal weather flight through the mountains? Did anyone at Orbic have confidence that they'd be able to turn around and come home if things got dicey? And on what basis?

Looks like that B4 had a Garmin 430 and an iPad, plus that ancient sixpack, not that I think better instrumentation would have made any difference here at their level of relevant experience.

To an earlier question, no commercial operator I know in Canada flies a VFR machine with two pilots.

It will come out in the NTSB report, of course, but I'd bet that the "safety pilot" in the EC130 was a freshly-rated pilot (perhaps not even IFR-rated) who was going along for the experience. Following roads is not always a guarantee of a safe arrival. Quick story: Once, back in the 1980's, very early in my career as a 135 pilot, I had to take a late-night trip from NYC to Atlantic City, New Jersey. Believe it or not, there is a lot of *nothing* in the middle of New Jersey. The weather was not great. My plan was to follow the Garden State Parkway, not the New Jersey Turnpike which would have made the trip longer. Long story short, there were big stretches of the "GSP" where there were *NO* cars. We're talking black, BLACK flying. I realized too late that I'd made the wrong choice and was in trouble. Holy crap, it was scary. And it became basically a low-level IFR flight until the lights of Atlantic City finally came into view. Still gives me shivers just thinking back on it. So I understand what those two boys in the EC130 were going through. Sadly, their flight ended more tragically than mine - mostly because I got lucky and they didn't, I suppose. Sometimes we pilots rely too much on luck.

The FAA Airmen Registry shows both deceased pilots as commercial/instrument rated with 1st class medicals.

Twice when I have requested a twin I never requested 2 pilots but on both occasions I got 2 pilots, possibly company policy? Both flights were out of Naples airport Italy

Did that B4 have a rad alt? I wouldn't fly at night without one.

I would think so since 2017 or 2018 Part 135 required one. I'd be more curious if it had an inlet barrier filter or particle separator installed given the blowing snow at the time.

Gee, I flew at night for years without one. As long as you avoid black holes and **** weather, you really don't need any fancy equipment at night. :8

Yeah, I got close to that one night over the desert just following I-10. Scary and disorientating pretty quick!

If there's one shortcoming to our training, its not teaching us to distinguish between VFR night and IFR night, or to simply look at the route on our charts and realize, "Gee, this area hear could easily turn into a black hole, I probably shouldn't do this flight, unless I can just do it all IFR".