Bell 505 down in Ireland
 

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2...-co-westmeath/

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....81ee6381e1.png


https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....d4d210de5f.jpg

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....919b9f4ad7.jpg

Irish Times saying there are casualties, no more details yet other than that the building is a piggery.

Registration Showing
 

I'm not sure it's a great idea to display an image showing the registration when we don't even know if next of kin have been notified.

What a thoughtless and terrible thing to write.

The image is from what appears to be a news site if you click the link.

Both occupants were killed in the crash. The flight was out of Weston, where there is a helicopter pilot training school.

the reg lookup i am seeing says it's a Bell 505

the reg can be found on twitter

You are correct. I entered the wrong registration.

One of those on board was a non-Irish national and news reports indicate that the police here are working through Interpol to try amd contact his next-of-kin.

Further info out that they had been reported by a local farmer for chasing cattle..........

why would one want to chase cattle ? Not in Oz !

Hardly likely, certainly not deliberating “chasing” cows, there may have been cattle in a field, it’s a big grass fed cattle growing region. Instructor may have been showing student how to get familiar with hazards, the cows might have run a bit with noise of helicopter in vicinity.

I read an alleged eyewitness report that it was flying low level and straight when the engine just seemed to quit, "it dropped like a stone," and "to have bounced on initial impact." I assume it hit the roof and bounced on it, according to this account.

To put all the silly eyewitness reports to bed, look at the flight log on FlightRadar. It starts of conducting multiple circuits at an airfield.
It departs the airfield and between 1500-1800ft on multiple occasions it has a high RoD, recovers and climbs back up to altitude.
Looks like circuits followed by Autorotation training, perhaps practise engine failure go resulted in the touch drills being the real thing

Practicing autorotations does tie in with that eyewitness account, engine noise drops, and heli rapidly losing altitude.

If you look at the pics, the skids are flattened and there's sods of grass and muck embedded in them, suggests that it did hit terra firma before its final resting place.

RIP to both guys.

Sure does…it must have hit pretty hard to get grass above the cross tube…
poor guys…
S

Both occupants publicly named now: https://www.independent.ie/irish-new...067113997.html

silly eyewitness report from the farmer of the cattle - either 'larking about' or repeated use of his field for ccts/eng offs. landed on shed after bouncing

Is the 505 a twistgrip throttle on the collective like the 206?

No twistgrip, its dual fadec

skadi

Maybe the cattle farmer doesn't know much about autorotations. Is a field full of cattle a usual choice?

Thanks - so cooker-knob style OFF/IDLE/FLT switch?

Just wondering how finger trouble could have turned a practice auto into a real one.

Crab

It’s a rocker switch on the collective, idle/flt, both collectives have it and allows either pilot or instructor to go to idle.

cheers

SS

At the time I was unaware of the tragic loss of life.
However seeing the photo my first thought was “How did a helicopter end up in that position?”

My sincerest apologies.

Thanks SS, that has nightmare scenario written all over it - is there a way of overriding the pilot selection (say it is set to idle accidentally) from the instructor's side or does the pilot's switch have to be physically moved back to FLT requiring a changing of hands by the instructor?

It’s important to point out that either pilot can command the 505 to “Fly,” but both pilots have to command it to “Idle.”
It sounds safeguarded well enough in principle, but humans can mess things up.

In practice:
During training, the one doing powered maneuvers has their collective throttle switched to the “Fly” position, with the other switched to the “Idle” position. The aircraft was designed so that only one throttle is switched to the ‘Fly’ position,

However, for teaching full touchdown autorotations, the student has his throttle switched to “Idle,” and the instructor’s is in the “Fly” position. This way the instructor is in charge of going to “Idle” to start the maneuver, and he has ultimate control to go back to powered flight if necessary.

We used to take both engines to idle for autorotation training on the EC135 and 145, until one of our instructors stated "1000ft, both engines to flight............500ft, needles mat............Oh!! I have control". One switch failed to operate correctly.

We stopped doing that straight away and the 145 flight manual now forbids this for training (I assume the 135 is the same).

Cheers
TeeS

Thanks Agile, that clears that up for me.:ok:

If you visit YouTube now and then, search Nick Murray's channel and he has a great video of intro and flying the 505... some great stuff, some very scary stuff (to me).

Discussion about the throttle switches from about 18:25 at:

So that should be straightforward then - the student (RHS) has FLT selected and the instructor (LHS) has IDL selected in normal flight. But if the student selects IDL as well then the instructor should be able to select FLT on his if the student forgets to reselect it after an auto?

I don't actually think the switch is a big deal but I'm sure some will get bent out of shape about it.
The issue could be regularly swapping from one type (with a twist grip throttle) to the 505 for training. If you jump out of a 206 after having done auto's and into the 505 then yes, you could go to wind it open only to remember it's a switch, however the 505 spools up so fast to flight, you could get away with it until late into the flare.
The 505 is far more complex than it's predecessor (and the 44 etc) even though it's still a single.
If you're instructing on the 505, maybe you need to brief yourself before starting and as always, good CRM and TEM would hopefully pick up any potential issues.
With all that said, I can see how easy this happens. You have a long day teaching on the 22/44/206 etc and then at the end of that day jump into the 505 to do some auto's. Muscle memory is a twist grip.

Fatal helicopter crash occurred during training manoeuvre, says preliminary AAIU report
http://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2024/...investigation/

Rule number 1 for auto's.
Always prepare to convert a practice auto for the real thing, therefore, pick a suitable site. Doesn't look like a very good site to me. RIP fellas.

The preliminary report appears to suggest everything about the chopper was in working order & that weather was not a factor. Looks like something went very badly wrong during the practice autorotation, with a heavy encounter with the ground followed perhaps by some kind of cartwheeling trajectory into the top of the building. RIP to both occupants.

I am not a pilot so asking as much as anything:

It looks like the apparent autorotations prior to the 6th and accident auto all approached or turned into the same general heading, which I assume was into a slight headwind. Most seemed to be over open farmland though the resolution in Figure 4 isn't high so hard to tell. For auto 4, it may have been a downwind start and turned into the wind during the descent? That seemed to be over woodlands. If intention was to turn into wind each time, then 6th auto may have initially approached in a crosswind(?). But it doesn't look like any obvious turn was being made that time? Hard to tell what potential landing point the pilot and instructor may have planned for. Can't imagine they aimed for the spot where the helicopter finally hit the ground.

The sequence of autos looks like a normal progression - AR 1 and 2 into wind, normal auto speed, AR 3 perhaps low speed auto (looks steeper on the line), AR 4 a 360 turning auto - leads me to suspect AR 5 and 6 were PFLs (practice forced landings) where the simulated engine failure is given and the student has to adjust speed and AoB in auto to make a suitable field.

Perhaps he went for the field before the crash site, flew a poor profile and then made the decision to go around far too late - they certainly hit the ground hard so maybe the instructor reselected FLY too late to allow the engine to spool up quick enough.

As Jeepys says - rule 1 applies but we've all had to compromise on occasions when suitable areas aren't plentiful.