Schreiner have 2 in Holland, BHL will have 4 in the SNS; 2 Norwich and 2 den Helder by end of the year, I think.

TC, it doesn't have an icing clearance, yet.

Hong Kong GFS EC155 Accident Report.
 

Joker's Wind posted this on the Fragrant Harbour Forum. It needs to be here also.
.............................

After 33 months of waiting, the accident report into the HK GFS EC155 crash of 26 August 2003 was finally made public.

The report can be downloaded at:

http://www.cad.gov.hk/reports/Accide...6_of_B-HRX.pdf

It's a large file (26 megs), but well worth the read.

My heart goes out to the two flight crew who perished in the crash. Having read the report thoroughly, it seems to me neither crew member was fully focused on the job that night, in that they seemed to be watching the clock quite closely.

Flight crew performing a task such as these gentlemen were, should NOT have to worry about receiving a bollocking if they don't meet certain time-related "performance pledges".

JW

working link (sortof):

http://www.cad.gov.hk/reports/Accide...6_of_B-HRX.pdf

No recommendation for an EGPWS, as if the device does not exist or that the device would not have prevented this accident!

Also, no call for 2-pilot operations! As if that would not help this case.

Also, no call for mandatory Mode C transponder operations at all times, as if that would not help this accident!

Some investigation!

One thing jumped out at me from this report; and I agree, it’s not the best.

The Radalt could have saved the day here. A reasonable Decision Height, set after take off, could well have given a warning of unexpected terrain closure with time enough to go skywards.

Yet the Report says

……………………

1.6.4.5 Radio Altimeter System with AVAD (Automatic Voice Alert Device.)

Sine the AVAD was designed for over-water flight and had no look forward or predictive capability it was of limited use over land. (??)

1.12.1.

At the point of impact with gently rising terrain……….

………………

HELP Guys, Tried to download and keep getting a "bad encrypt dictionary" error message (whatever that means). Dont have any trouble with other PDF files from the cad.gov.hk site, just the EC155 report.
Blue Skies,
Brian

I used the second link (no particular reason) and it worked fine with the standard right click and save target as.

What a terribly sad report, full of "what ifs". What if they had been 50 ft higher, or 200 m left of their track (like, over the road). Also, how close to the steep drop off to the coast they were: so near but so far.

I agree that an AVAD DH setting policy may have helped and of course EGPWS. However, what degree of fidelity would the EGPWS have to allow flight through the pass without warnings, even if clear of the ridge in question?

Despite the lack of DH setting, though, the pilot would have an indication of approaching ground as the altimeter tape on the PFD depicts the ground level as a brown base that would have been slowly rising to the datum point (also a similar brown base on the radalt display on the ND). I can only guess that in the conditions he would have been more occupied with looking out the window, rather than at his instruments, especially with AP holds engaged.

One or two comments (after a quick speed read) seem a bit crass:

"Survivable if seats and structure built to a higher spec?" I guess you could say that about all accidents!

"Attempted to shut the engines down" Really? You've just had an unexpected impact with terrain, at night in bad weather, which results in the blades disintegrating, and then in the subsequent 2.5 seconds as you tumble 100 ft down to the ground you calmly reach up and retard the fuel cut off lever, open the engine switch guard and turn the switch off, then pull the emergency electrical cut off ganbar! I doubt you could do all that while sitting on the ground, in daylight, having primed yourself to do it!! How about impact forces and objects (branches etc) penetrating the cockpit being the more likely answer?

I was also struck by the fact that theories were put forward as facts, such as "the pilot WAS subjected to confirmation bias". I'm sure NTSB/AAIB etc would have used expressions like "the pilot MAY have been ..."

Finally, it illustrates perfectly a statement that was in Flight International a year or so ago when they were reviewing the annual airline accidents for that year and discussing the fact that CFIT was still the major cause of accidents. It said that in almost all cases of CFIT, the CVR showed that the crew were experiencing a feeling of unease prior to impact. If in doubt, there is no doubt!:(

212man, thanks - fixed problem by getting rid of V6 and getting V7.

Personally terribly sad about this accident. As an ex of that employ and as someone who knew the pilot, I can say I always had grave concerns about that so-called VFR route from its inception. Not a brilliant idea to put one over some of the steepest rising and highest bits of terrain in the area... At night it was just a black hill with a row of roadside lights up it. There would have been no back lighting to assess the cloud cover. Last time I was up there at night it was whilst flying an NVG SAR mission; even that wasn't easy.

What jumped out of the report for me was,
and
Having made those feelings felt only shortly before the accident you can understand why he may have done what he did in terms of route selection, particularly if some comment had been made about his turn around previously. Also the report does not make clear that the crew KNEW it was a non emergency case.
I'm reminded of a crew where I worked being criticised by the head C & T'er when doing a annual SAR check for "wasting time" by doing a brief prior to stepping. Trip was also being used as a trainer for a back seater on his first trip. Cant please everybody it seems.
The report seems to want to hang it all on the pilot. (he screwed up despite all the training we gave him - CRM etc. Once again, as with the first quote, my humble opinion is that its time management started to attend CRM to understand the impact and effect their decisions can have.)
To quote Stanley Roscoe
There is a lot of truth in as well,
May God rest their souls.

A very sad story.

There are clear elements of 'mission creep' in this organisation's op. Even at 1500, those guys would have only cleared the pass by a few hundred feet, and there is not a not of room to conduct a 180, right at the top of the pass, with rapidly rising high ground on either side.

We should all examine our daily/nightly ops and ensure that the mission does not grow beyond the capability of the crew or the aircraft...

On 'pledge'...is something lost in the translation there? Are they referring to the mission, or do they really mean 'pledge?'

The response time of 20 minutes was a performance target set some years before. Unrealistic, considering that the pilot might actually be asleep when the call comes in (although he wasn't in this instance).

I was very surprised that wearing of flying helmets, rather than headsets, was not seen as a priority, especially as it was a night flight when ambient temperatures are lower and personal comfort shouldn't have been a major issue. Complacency a factor in personal survival issues?

It should also be remembered that not all cultures are intent on making sure the blame is correctly placed. Some are intent in ensuring that blame is not placed on superiors, local nationals (when a foreigner may be a convenient scapegoat), etc.
I was involved in an investigation where several tourists were killed in a helicopter crash in foreign country. Despite strong evidence to the contrary which I produced, the board of enquiry concluded that the cause was one of the passengers shutting off the fuel...

Read up on ICAO - an accident report should not be allocating blame. Although some investigators do spend more time eliminating anything in their reports that may cause others to allocate blame.

Any cue on the policy. Poor Head created poor tail. How to prevent the accident b4 it is happen. Why there is no way to take it away before it really drop into shtt.

I suspect that there were a number of re-writes and edits before this version was published, hence the long delay. As I understand it not ‘everyone’ was pleased with the original findings.

Does anyone know which bits were required to be modified?

That was a really useful contribution, Windbird! I look forward to many more enlightening and constructive inputs!:ugh:

Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the flowers gone?
Girls have picked them every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the young girls gone?
Taken husbands every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the young men gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the young men gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the young men gone?
Gone for soldiers every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Covered with flowers every one
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?

Could the pilot alone constitute this mishap?
 

Brain Abrham, you are right, the management of Gravity Flying School GFS had never thought of the risk until the so-called accident was happened. The management was shocked, but still they put all the responsibility to the poor pilot. Have they ever thought of the poor leadership which truly dragged the chopper and brought the aircrew to the God.

In fact, the mishap was sitting there for a long time, it was not the first working day of the pilot and the traps ( the reasons of this accident) were sitting there for years. Were they daydreaming before the mishap?

The CAD found out that the pilot swore the 20 minutes TOS policy on the way back to work. He did not do the flight planning, he and his crew did not wear helmets. He continued to swear the 20 minutes TOS rule. He did not select the less risky route to fly to the destination. He ignored the SOP (standard operation procedure) of flying in the wrong altitude and high speed. He ignore the repetitive reminder from the crewman at the back and attempted speedy flying. He placed the 20 min TOS with higher priority than his life.

If the headmaster and the deans of each faculty had done their jobs, this mishap would have not happened. Why the pilot had such a sub-standard EQ and IQ was able to pass the recruitment test, training, simulator training, CRM, human factor training, annual checks &....... Why the crewman could not use a stronger word to remind the pilot in order to keep his life. It was because of the poor culture running around in the school for years.

The culture of " I dont care, just do it", " No need to explain to me!", " are you going to argue with me now?" , and "The door is always open, (for kicking you out)" should be completely abolished.

Proactive & preventive
 

Brain Abraham and Speedbird, I agree with you all. I belive you read the report in full - A great Salute to you.

SIIS, the report was written by the CAD, be open mind and stop focusing on personal stuff.

Be proactive for god's sake. What did the top men do to prevent this accident before it was happend. The god dmn.. accident will repeat itself.

SayItIsntSo

"1. From the GFS base to Cheung Chau is effectively just down the road…it is a case of out through the pass a touch left and it is straight ahead…there was not a hell of a lot more that they needed to do, and I am sure that this route had been done by this pilot many times before."

Actually, there WAS a hell of a lot more this poor crew needed to do that night, namely, stop dwelling on this ridiculous performance pledge that was obviously foremost in their minds.

What they WEREN'T doing, unfortunately, was looking right at Tung Chung Pass and seeing it for what it was, which was totally obscured in cloud. They had no business even considering attempting to navigate that pass that night and yet in spite of the obvious visual reality they faced, still elected to press on.

You state you are sure this pilot had flown this route many times before. You're probably quite right in that assessment. So why then, on that night and in what were very obvious poor weather conditions, did the pilot elect to press on? What pressure was he feeling or subjected to that would literally drive him and a fellow crewman to their deaths???

I'm not trying to make light of this, rather, understand why the accident report really did nothing to address, in any amount of detail, the organisational aspect relating to this accident. If you ask me, the accident report is just a little too tidy and confined in its scope.

JW

Joker’s Wild,

“If you ask me, the accident report is just a little too tidy and confined in its scope”

Agreed…and perhaps it was this tidying up that took so long and why the report was not submitted in its original format.

“They had no business even considering attempting to navigate that pass that night and yet in spite of the obvious visual reality they faced, still elected to press on.”

I am not so sure that this is the case. Why would a fully qualified and experience crew choose the impossible if it was an “obvious visual reality”.

The alternative route to the destination when flown at 140 kts can’t be more than 3 or 4 minutes longer.

I can’t help feel that too much weight is being allocated to ‘the pledge’. As with many ‘pledges’ by Government Agencies they are targets, but not something to die for.

Was it a mistake to choose that route? Absolutely, self evident.

Was it the first mistake made by a GFS aircraft in this and its previous incarnation the RHKAAF when conducting a Medevac? No.

Will it be the last? No. All they can do is increase the time interval to the next incident.

The political implication of restricting their current level of support to the various Government Agencies would be unacceptable given their large budget and manpower levels.

The Managment is to responsible to the accident - not the pilot
 

:= Guys, please open your eyes on the Earth. Senior managments are responsible to the major accidents, not the poor chap in the front line.

If I were one of the senior guys, I would have resigned and donated all my grauity to the families of the poor scrape goat and the back sitter for inability managment, poor employee filtration, training, quality control and no preventive actions - which sadly caused two fatals.

Why given of this level of budget and power, the GFS cannot turn down some absurd call outs especially during the bad weather.

Why the accident report only pointing the finger to the poor front seat chap. Why in the accident report the managment is unbelievably "Clean" ? Should the CAD also share her part of fail to monitor GFS sucessfully.

It could be said that the management should shoulder some of the blame. However, it should be remembered that the response time pledge had been put in place some years previously. It was introduced as a measure of the effectiveness of the unit. The possible implication of such a pledge was discussed at the time, however the management always stood firmly behind the decisions of a captain who elected not to meet the target - and therein lay the safeguard. Hopefully this will now be reviewed - it's tragic that it apparently played a part in an accident of the worst kind.

As for the so-called "VFR" route to CLK - it cannot ever be sensible to put a VFR route over the highest ground in the area. However, as far as I can tell, this was not primarily a GFS management issue, the routes were "given" to the unit as a 'fait accomplis', prior to the opening of the new airport.

However, the pilot could have taken another route around Lantau. No-one forced him to attempt to go over the top of the hill and no-one could have criticised him had he tried the route, made a controlled abort / turnaround and either returned to base or asked ATC for another route.

Harsh as it may seem (I know how sensitive an issue this is) but correct and safe judgement was perhaps clouded (no pun intended) by other issues at many levels. Every pilot faces such difficulties from time to time and usually it is easier to say yes and get on with it - knowing when to say "no" is the difficult part. The one thing I try to remember is self preservation - whatever else happens, the pilot is always in the crash.

EC155 Problems
 

We are currently looking at an EC155.

Has anyone got some real operating experience of this aircraft and what are the problems, if any?

It can't hover OGE at max gross ... does that count as a problem? :}

EC doesn't appear to be selling as many of those as they would hope. Seems the 365N3 is more popular these days.

Hi andTompkins,

its only not hovering, if you jerk around on the controls and disturb the airflow ;-)

O.K., on MTOW it's much more comfy to take off and land with a little forward speed, nevertheless, its doing around 150 kts at MTOW (once airborne).

It's not such a bad machine, as many say. You can have a lot of fun flying it - more fun as with most other helicopters ;-)

Greetings Flying Bull
flying the EC155

It requires about 8 zillion hours of servicing for every hour it flies, if you're in a hot country and don't have aircon, the forced ventilation is very poor, in a hot country it doesn't cruise as fast as FB says, and on a single engine at the temperatures we have in Nigeria it's performs about as well as a Nigerian bobsleigh team :}

Hi TomBola,

don't know, how fast your maintainers work ;-)
Nigeria - very hot - I guess sandy as well, which will hurt the engines anyway.
But having an operator, giving you there an EC 155 without clima says all - doens't it?
Saving on the work place for the pilot - guess the operator is saving on other hands as well...

Greetings Flying Bull

I have some nice videos from EC155 flying - unfortunatly they are confidential, because they cover tactics we use with the bird
Just don't refuel to the top (if possible)

FB,

The owner is actually Shell (you know, that little oil company) and all maintenance is carried out in accordance with the Eurocopter maintenance schedule.

Not a lot of dust. Except now during the Harmattan our climate is humid and tropical - though I'd guess we have fairly high air pollution levels. Maybe you don't fly your helicopters 4 or 5 hours a day like us?

Hi TomBola,

well, I'm lucky, we fly in a more moderate climazone :-)

4 to 5 hrs - not always, but sometimes.
Last year i.e. the soccer world championchip and on tactical training weeks, our birds had more hours than that on a day - but not on a regular basis.
Beeing parked outside - sometimes even at minus degrees with rime all over the birds.

All that went without any problems.

But sometimes ours stay for weeks - from 15hrs/7day check to 15hrs/7day check only with ground runs or powerchecks. Reason is not the helicopter, but pairing of pilots on duty and the normal flying job - which is normally done with BK117s.
If no special tactical task are due or called for - only currency training is done on the EC.
_______________________

Shell - wasn't that the company, with the Brent Spar, which they wanted to dump in the sea, without cleaning the platform first?

There are lots of news from nigeria, where money saving from part of the big companies seems more important than safety an enviromental conditions.
I guess, it's important to keep the plattforms running - but if I read, that you don't have clima on your birds - they don't seem to think much their pilots - and passengers.
I bet, it would be much more comfy and less stressing having a clima - I see that in summer flying BK without or EC with.....

I was very sceptic about the 155 - until I got the rating.
O.K., there are some shortcomings, but show me an helicopter without.
I'm quite happy by now flying the EC 155. Very smooth flying and reduced workload, once you have understood all the systems to use.

And we're lucky, mostly we don't have to operate at MTOW :-)

A littte bit more to think about doing outside landings so that you won't hit the ground with the belly or the tail, than with skidded helicopters,
more feel needed, when heavy, because the bird has the tendency to descend, when starting to accelerate - while our BK's start to accelerate and climb at that point - but knowing about that helps avoinding to hit things in the path ;-)


Greetings Flying Bull

The 155 does not have anti-ice on rotor etc.. so I would assume the RFM says "flight into known icing conditions is prohibited".

Not that I know for sure!

New EC155 with revolutionary fixed rotor head!
 

Eurocopter has just introduced a new prototype of the EC155. It has a revolutionary new fixed rotor head which they say improves lift.

The new prototype is being tested in the North sea by DanCopter.

More news to come.

This ground breaking new design can be see by following the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFCsFTnW5y4

:D

A very safe design; Eurocopter are to be applauded for their innovation.

Cheers

Whirls

Looks like they still have some work to get the tail rotor fixed.

To bad for Dave, they beat him with the first "absolutely rigid rotor";)

Fascinating: it's common to see slowly moving blades (even going backwards) but I've never seen totally stationary ones.

For those wonderring why the blades start turning after kanding and then stop again before take off, it's because the landing and take off will be with the Nr switch set at HI, giving 360 rpm. On deck the switch will be set to NORM, giving 342 rpm and hence the movement.

212man, you really must ask BSB to let you out more...

Unfortunately these aircraft can only fly in 120 kts of wind or more and the range is limited to the length of the kitestring.

I think it's rather pointless to start the rotors after landing.

"I think it's rather pointless to start the rotors after landing."

...especially in reverse gear !