Robinson crash in FL
 

Very sad news
Family of 4 died in a helicopter crash on Des 30th. https://www.pprune.org/images/smilie...y_dog_eyes.gif
not speculating but flying VFR in a Robbie at 8:30 pm after dark in remote ish area


https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....77bda3f701.jpg
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....7b41a625fc.jpg

local news report

Sad. Just sad.

If this "distress beacon" was a 406 MHz ELT, set-off by its G switch, then this an exceptionally good turnaround time. Unfortunately, in this case, of no help to the pax who would have died on impact.

That is the most totally destroyed helicopter I have ever seen.

Yes, that's not a low speed poor EOL outcome, that's a high speed air/ground interface arrival. RIP

I wouldn't put too much weight on the accuracy of the time line as reported, or any other details for that matter, as the reporter is clearly clueless.

As the timeline and relevant details come from the County Sheriff, the competence of the local reporter hardly matters.

No totally destroyed ,there is a long list…..

Pilot 36, spouse 32, children 8 and 5.
Either added rotorcraft or SEL 6 months ago.
I’m suspecting it was rotorcraft and he was low time helicopter and really low time night.
Certificate: PRIVATE PILOT
Date of Issue: 6/9/2021

Ratings:
PRIVATE PILOT
AIRPLANE SINGLE ENGINE LAND
ROTORCRAFT-HELICOPTER

Sad taking your family with you like that.

I don’t think he woke up that morning and thought I’m going to take my family on a bad trip, are you a lawyer suggesting legal action?

when familly is onboard, use a diferent standard.
say no to night, say no to any weather,
no deviation from the conservative principles
go arround or cancel fligth before your personal minimum

Agile, all good advice, but someone has to teach you those lessons, unfortunately gaining a license is merely giving you permission to learn, it doesn't mean you know all there is to know. You just don't know what you don't know, you will never know what you don’t know. There will always be gaps in your knowledge, places where you are absolutely clueless as to your ignorance. You hope to fill the bag of experience without emptying the bag of luck. RIP to a family whose luck ran out before gaining the necessary knowledge or experience.

The timeline suggests they crashed shortly after departure.

https://gilchristcountyjournal.net/2...agic-accident/

There often is an underlying cultural issue when looking at these types of accidents involving Robinsons.
Owner/pilot who has a bit of cash and is master of his/her business domain and is unaccustomed to hearing the word "no".
Training that involves younger instructors and a significant age/life experience gradient in the cockpit.
You just end up with new pilots who's perception of their abilities outweighs their actual ability and are completely ill-equipped to identify risk, let alone manage it.

The sensible thing to do is to leave the family at home, acknowledge the learning has just started, and go fly with other experienced pilots who can mentor you through this dangerous time.
Eventually the lightbulb goes on, in most people anyway, and they develop an appreciation for how little they actually know and behave accordingly.

Too many families are needlessly snuffed out in aviation accidents.

Spot on.



(adding text here to reach the prescribed 10-character minimum.)

Or park the bus before the sun goes down and have another go at first light the next morning.

Absolutely right Bell Ringer:ok: sadly, it is a scenario we have seen far too often.

Not too dissimilar to rich guys buying supercars and then writing them off because they didn't know and didn't appreciate the dangers.

In a country where you have to be told that coffee in cups might be hot - how can a low-time pilot be allowed to carry pax without further training?

There should be a mandatory period of flying hours where you can only fly with a more experienced pilot or solo and then have an instructor check-ride before being allowed to carry passengers.

Different standards
 

A responsible pilot should not apply different standards whether he's carrying family or rolls of barbed wire.
Same is valid for personal minima.
But all this comes with personal experience and this involves a lot of flying under supervision be this direct or indirect.

Totally agree.
The Robinson POH has a safety notice SN44 stating that a newly rated pilot should not carry pax until 100hrs and 20hrs solo. Also only to fly VFR in daylight and keep the first several flights local.
Many smart pilots follow this SN44, some don't and within 1-5 hrs after passing they start flying with pax to places they've never been. (not saying the affected pilot didn't. I'm not aware of his experience).

The FAA says you are ready when you pass your checkride.

Robinson says what their lawyers tell them to say.

The insurance company is in there somewhere, as well.

Rotorheads will never be satisfied with anything less than a background non-commercial pilots will rarely ever reach.

The reality is, of course, somewhere in between, and is strongly dependent on actual pilot skill and judgement.

It would be interesting to know if this was his first, or fiftieth, off airport night departure. Based on a certificate date of June 2021, it is easy to guess that might have been one of his first.

Occam's Razor also suggests pilot error, but there is no way to know for certain. Perhaps it was some type of catastrophic failure that many like to assign to Robinson helicopters.

The real question is: why do they not teach pilots how to properly and safely do things with helicopters that helicopters actually do? In the US, it is very likely that a newly minted private pilot has made the vast majority of their flights paved runway to paved runway, performed their minimal confined space operations in a farmer's field that was by no means confined, have very little night experience, and have performed zero off airport operations at night.

I am the very definition of the guy "with a bit of cash, master of my business domain, life/experience gradient", etc. I was quite disappointed, sometimes bordering on the appalled, by the instruction I was not receiving. I was lucky in that I mostly (not entirely, of course, and I am ever watchful) knew what I didn't know, and thus recognized the need for more and better instruction, something which ultimately lead me to push on to a commercial rating. How many don't know what they don't know?

And even with a newly minted commercial certificate I was left hanging. For instance, I never flew in rain (in a helicopter), not once, until after I had a commercial rating! Yes, it's bad for the blade paint, but worse for the student. Never once when the weather is at Class G minimums. But I was asked to do both when actually working as a pilot. Thankfully I had my fixed wing training to partially fall back on. My private fixed wing training was much better in some areas. There are certain institutional fears found in helicopter training that are, IMHO, misplaced. VFR night and weather conditions were much more extensively flown in during fixed wing training. This needs to change where primary helicopter instruction is concerned.

And the idea that you should not fly with your family at night is ludicrous. If the weather is reasonably VFR, and the man and machine so certified, this should not be a great challenge if flown paved runway to paved runway. But, certainly, night off-airport op's are next level stuff. I'd be interested to know if anyone here ever received formal training in that outside of the military or public safety/HEMS.

To get back to the case at hand what could explain such an utterly violent impact? This seems to be a very high energy CFIT

It probably was not "controlled". Could be pilot loss of control due to spatial disorientation. Could be a catastrophic mechanical failure of some sort.

I think most here would think it more likely that the failure in this tragic accident will be with the pilot, not the aircraft. Clearly we don't know the cause, but I do find this sort of official comment maddening:

"the LCSO reported the aircraft experienced an undetermined failure causing the crash"

It is unfairly damaging to the reputation of helicopters, Robinson and even maintenance organisations when such ignorant comments are made - there is no way that could yet be known. And course it inevitably gets repeated in other media.

Personally I have no problem with the statement, the undetermined failure being either mechanical or pilot, as yet we don't know.

Although I don't usually, I have to agree with aa777888 here: The training that most nascent helicopter pilots receive regarding night, off-airport, confined-area ops is deplorable. And that should change. I'm civilian-trained. It wasn't until I started flying charters - with my huge "1,000" hours (wink-wink) that I got to do my first ones. The fact that the company trusted me not to crash and kill some "very important people" seems insane now. But that was then (1982). Fortunately, I had good instructors in the late 1970's when I was coming up - guys who were recently back from Viet Nam. Those guys really knew how to fly. What they taught me obviously saved my life many times over the years.

And so, yeah, if you're going to go paved runway to paved runway... then use an airplane. But if you're going to use a helicopter to do things that helicopters do, then you should get the necessary training. Unfortunately, it is not currently provided.

He decided to take his family.

That’s all there is to it.

It’s my understanding that Frank(?) Robinson never intended the R-22 to be a trainer or a machine for an inexperienced PPL holder.
https://www.flightglobal.com/nothing.../17067.article
The addition of a rotorcraft/helicopter rating requires :
That is all dual training and likely the only night experience in a helicopter.
SEL night training requirement added totals 6 hrs night experience over two different categories.
Currently sunset in Florida is at 17:46 EST.
Therefore 20:30 EST is dark especially with no clouds.
Back to my earlier statement: He decided to attempt the flight and take with him the people that trusted his skills the most, his own family.

I’ve flown helicopters for a living since 1979 (with a few years of light fixed wing, too) and was trained from very early on to fly in IMC on “floppy stick” helicopters. I have (infrequently) flown some of my family, including in IMC on a couple of occasions…..but never in an unstabilised single.

I also ride motorcycles and have been doing so since long before learning to fly, having first learned to ride well over fifty years ago. I’ve always been more careful when carrying a pillion passenger. If I’ve not ridden for a while, I’d never take a passenger until I’ve gone out solo for a while, particularly when changing between my two bikes with foot controls on the opposite side.

Maybe being cautious is why I’m still here and have never injured a passenger, either flying or biking.

I’ve known both pilots and bike riders who weren’t so cautious and considered themselves highly expert but are no longer with us..

Exactly Shy and it is that caution that keeps most of us alive - it is the 'entitled' brigade who have paid their money for a licence that allows them to 'do what they want' in their minds who don't seem to understand how far down the experience tree they really are.

If more training was mandated then people would be up in arms at the prohibitive cost of getting a helicopter licence and protesting about personal freedoms being restricted etc etc.

Maybe we just have to accept that stupid is as stupid does and they will keep killing themselves in the same ways - we just just have to hope they don't crash into us!

Yes, that is very much a large part of the problem. I had plenty more fixed wing night hours then my first helicopter instructor had any sort of night hours. When planning my night XC he was horrified of my first choice, an easy hop over the countryside into a nice, mid-sized, well lighted airport that I had been to many times in the dark, even as a fixed wing student. "Too dark that way" he said. That was my first inkling of the training shortfalls I would experience. He had us going a much longer distance over an urban landscape that was brilliantly lit.

I've got over 350 night hours (almost all over a city in an R22) and I still avoid rural America like the plague,...and fly longer to stay over more lighted areas.

Then again my first night flight was over the open desert between Phoenix and Tuscon with nothing but the lights of a skinny little road 1,500' below. Followed by an even longer one a couple nights later to Long Beach. That was enough to cure me of any desire to fly xc over nothing at night in anything but a Southwest airliner.

Then I hear about a school I went to flying an R44 over the open ocean between Hawaiian Islands at night and think, "those guys are nuts!"

Maybe I'd feel differently if I'd had instructors with real helicopter experience teaching me?

Then again I also think, "Well, they taught me how to fly at night. They taught me how to land off airport. If I can't put those two together, then maybe I'm not fit to be a pilot?"

Being upside down, or steep nose down at impact.

It is actually easier at night. Back in the 90's I flew between Kauai and Oahu once at night and back during daylight hours. One cannot see your destination during the day, but at night you can see the glow of Oahu..... This was in an Astar with only a compass for navigation....no GPS etc....

One night (many moonless nights ago) I was flying my little R22 across the SF Bay from San Carlos to Hayward. Both were reporting "clear below 12,000" and yeah the lights of the East Bay made for a very nice clear target to aim for (didn't even have to turn on my gps :}).

Then at one point somwhere near the middle I got to experience the most trouser filling two seconds of my life (at that point) when those lights disappeared and the windshield went black. Seems I had passed through a wisp of a cloud.

So yeah, I guess it is easier at night,...to go right into a cloud you didn't know was there!

For what its worth, I have flown over the open ocean during the day when I couldn't see any land in any direction (due to how low I was flying to try and avoid a much stiffer headwind higher up). That was in an R22 Mariner (with a gps so old all I had was a number to follow) and I'll take that over not being able to see the clouds in my path any day of the week! :O

That is incorrect and untenable.

There are many legally permissible missions that equally legally require to be done without pax. Eg, training, re-familiarization, certain DG ops.

This is (i) about avoiding to unnecessarily expose pax to the necessary risk of that mission, and (ii) simply also about the distraction and (real or perceived) pressure stemming from the presence of pax.

Probably start with the issues the R22 is known for then determine which one is the most probable based on empirical evidence.
From my very limited knowledge about helicopters I understand there is an issue which is more prevalent with fixed wing pilots that transition to helicopter then helicopter only trained pilots.
Abrupt corrections using the cyclic (?) rather then the collective. Using the cyclic like you would a fixed wing yoke or stick as far as pitch control.
Somebody please correct me and explain it the right way.

This was a recently minted private rotorcraft pilot who, on the face of it, has taken off on a dark night off-airport in his own helicopter with his family on board. My hunch is as soon as he was surrounded in darkness he was instantly overcome by a situation completely outside his proficiency level, panicked and lost control of a serviceable helicopter shortly thereafter. And possibly became inverted or crashed nose first at high speed resulting in the total destruction of the helicopter, and, needlessly, themselves.

Does anything in FAA land or the RFM specify the need for an artificial horizon or attitude indicator to be fitted for night flight in a Robbie?

Night VFR is a misnomer, especially over poorly lit ground or sea. You might be able to see other aircraft but probably can't see any ground definition and the visual horizon can be very difficult to define.

If I remember rightly an artificial horizon is a requirement for night flying in the UK.

Nope, but you are required to be able to see the ground, either by lights on the ground, or adequate celestial illumination.

Most R44's I've flown though, have had one installed, and (to my surprise) the last R22 I flew even had a glass one, with a glass HSI below it.