N&S I'm truly sorry to hear that, and my sympathies to you and your colleagues.

The news in Brazil have just reported they found all 4 bodies... the captain Rommel have been working in off-shore for over 20 years and he survived another accident years ago.

Total of 386 AW 139 aircraft in the world now.

As N&S mentioned, they reported hydraulic failure first and then ditching afterwords...

Photos: AgustaWestland AW-139 Aircraft Pictures | !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Very said news, especially now that the off-shore industry is increasing operations in Brazil

Thank you for your words 212 man.

I am also flying the AW139 for Petrobras but for a different company other than Senior.
I 100% agree with HLCPTR that we must keep an open mind and let the helicopter (CVR and data recorder) tell us what happened.
Another uncomfortable but necessary information that must be consider is that Senior Taxi Aereo is facing a very difficult time because they are short in staff – mainly maintenance. About 20 engineer/mechanics resigned in a very near past and the ones left are double shifting and reporting to be exhausted.

PR-SEK was grounded because of vibration out of limits (HUMS) for three days and went back to line just three days (inclusive) before the accident.

The positive news is that Petrobras grounded all AW139 under their contract until they are fully convinced about the helicopter safety. Agusta Westland sent over some specialists to make part of the investigation. The first meeting took place last Saturday and as soon as I have any further news I will keep you PPrune guys posted.

PR-SEK: Helicopter found by ROV's with tailboom, but without TGB, somebody in a close rig saw the helicopter in fast fall...

How did you know? Any pics

It is not just about Petrobras AWs anymore
 

All 18 Brazilian-registered AgustaWestland AW139s have been temporarily grounded as a precautionary measure, following a 19 August fatal accident.
The incident involved AW139, registration PR-SEK, flown by Brazilian offshore operator Senior Taxi Aéreo. It was performing a routine flight with two crew members and two passengers between Macaé airport and the Petrobrás P-65 oil rig, located 57nm (105km) from the Brazilian coast, and onward to Rio de Janeiro's Jacarepaguá airport when it crashed, shortly after departing the rig at 16:48 local time.
At 16:48 the aircraft's crew declared an emergency, indicating the helicopter had experienced a hydraulic systems failure. They stated their intention to return to P-65 for an emergency landing. However, the helicopter failed to complete the journey and ditched into the sea.
A combined Brazilian air force and navy rescue effort located the helicopter on 20 August, submerged at a depth of 99m and some 54nm west of the coast. There were no survivors.
The Brazilian navy and Petrobrás are jointly retrieving the aircraft. The Centro de Investigação e Prevenção de Acidentes Aeronáuticos (CENIPA), Brazil's aircraft accident investigation board, will ship the engines, gearboxes and other items to the Departamento de Ciência e Tecnologia Aeroespacial's laboratories at São José dos Campos for analysi,s with the assistance of representatives from AgustaWestland and engine supplier Pratt & Whitney Canada.
Immediately after the accident, Petrobrás asked Brazilian regulator Agéncia Nacional d'Avição Civil (ANAC) to issue a temporary grounding order for the type. ANAC granted the request, which affects 18 airframes divided between Senior Taxi Aéreo, OMNI Taxi Aéreo and Aeróleo Taxi Aéreo, all of which provide offshore services to Petrobrás and other oil companies.

the source about above information
 

Ok, my apologies for the inappropriate information. In this case let's wait. The helicopter will be lifted in a few days.

This information is not right. Just the AW-139 that flys to Petrobrás are grounded in Brazil. The other contracts are flying normally.

Rumor has it that AW will ground any 139 that has T/R blades with more than 600 hrs.

wreckage recovery
 

Anyone out the know how the wreckage recovery efforts are going?:sad:

my regards to the families and friends

it is too bad that brasil does not want to allow expats to work here until the shortage of pilots and mechanics is no longer an issue

Im sure they will find the T/R detach !!!!!!:ugh::ugh:

When I was doing my intial Senor Taxi had about a dozen very young R-22 pilots doing the training to become FO's.

Agusta letter just out confirms that T/R is detached from the rest of the airframe, with an explaination of how the hydraulics are suppose to work.
Also a mandatory inspection of the T/R blades.

Anyone still believe that the Hong Kong accident was a bird strike?

agusta westland
 

AgustaWestland will never informed AW139 Customers and Operators of any follow‐on information that may emerge.Customers should stop dealing with the company until the find the result of crashes.

Call around, and there was a meeting yesterday of all such information. I'm not in Italy, i live, work and pilot an AW-139 in Rio de Janeiro. And i lost 2 big friends. Best Regards

T/R - 600hrs
 

Dear AgustaAW139
As far as I am concern, this meeting actually took place and the information given by the Agustawestland test pilot was ipsis literis as mentioned by parnaiocas.
Even though the acft still remains at the see bed (due to the bad weather) , they have the ROVs image recorder data and issued the BT as you can see above.

Agustawestland just cannot afford to have another event while wait for the full report before disclose it.

North South, "ipsis literis"? Is that Portuguese or Latin? One t or two? Had to google it myself, but good to know that the pilot community strives for a higher cultural standard.

To Savoia's simplistic matrix, this would then fall into a mechanical problem as opposed to a pilot error problem. But in true HFACS fashion, you could compare the positive outcome of the similar Hong Kong mechanical failure to the negative one here and determine why the difference. Were the pilots exposed to two different training regimes -one of which improved the outcome of a technical fault? That would be an organizational issue.

Hey Malabo, happy to see that you goggle it….it is Latin, but widely used in English though….such as so many expressions we use in a daily basis: am, pm, per se, e.g.., etc. and….etc.:)