R22 down near Reading UK
 

https://www.readingchronicle.co.uk/n...crashes-field/From a 3 February incident.

To clarify there were no injuries and the student pilot pulled the mixture not the carb heat when descending ( not a good idea )
The helicopter landed in a muddy ploughed field at zero speed and rolled over

I am guessing the mixture guard was not fitted. Oops.

"No injuries"? What about that poor little R22!? :(

It will live again as a 1000 Heinz beans cans, infinitely more airworthy :E

You guessed incorrectly it was fitted

How was it possible to accidentally pull the mixture with the guard fitted?

Was it maybe an action slip, with the student deliberately removing the guard and then pulling the mixture, thinking they were applying the correct sequence of actions to apply carb heat?

This is exactly what happened to me. The student had always been very mindful and deliberate in their actions, but for some reason went for the wrong control. You may be surprised at how smoothly and quickly your hand can move the guard and press the button to activate the control. We walked away without injury thankfully, but I changed a couple things about the way I taught those controls.

It used to happen more often on the 300, no mixture guard there, the only difference was the color of the pulling knob.
to make matters worse the location of these on the dash was not the same from aircraft to aircraft (old H269 vs new 300CB vs "new equipement installed" pulling knob relocated ....)
when flying those a night (with colour vision reduced), I always remind myself to think 3 times of what you are doing.

With two pilots you should Identify, Confirm and then Select when operating any critical control.

ie. point at the switch/lever you want to move, get the other pilot to agree it is the correct one and then (and only then) select/move the switch/control.

CRM 101

Yes for MCC trained crew in a mulitpilot operation,

This is 2 guys in a r22, get a grip :ugh:

because what you are suggesting takes experience, training and recurrent training.

I dont know the experience levels of the pilots involved and it's not an insult to them, however, you are only as good as your experience and training.

Whilst we allow ppl's to quality at 45 hours and instructors to instruct with barely many more hours, this is what we have to live with as an industry in the civvy world.

more training costs more, becomes a barrier to entry, the industry is already in crisis with rising costs, so we will keep allowing the bare minimum and then say really enlightening things like 'shouldda operated like a 2 crew'

Well that's the mcc course complete then :ok:

The vast majority of UK PPL students take 70-100 hours to get a PPL(H)

It is not possible to get paid for flight instruction in the UK until you have have a CPL & FI rating, and that takes a minimum of 285 hours (you can't start the FI course until you have 250 hours)

But the point is you can be let free at 45 hours, I was.

And you have proved my point, 285 hours, its nothing, especially if 45 of which are achieving a PPL

Until PPL instructors earn A LOT more than £25-£30k a year, or A LOT more than £50 per datcon hour....the industry is not going to attract experienced and committed instructors.

Completely agree

This is an instructor with a student, not two guys on a jolly.

You don't need to have completed a MCC to understand or practice the concept and any instructor should instil CRM basics into his student from the very beginning.

Arguing that you can't use airmanship just because you haven't done the course is infantile.

Goodness me. Don't we get all PPRuNey quickly. A bit of perspective here. As you say this was training, and for all we know the instructor was indeed training his or her student about airmanship and to be cautious about rushed instrument selections. I know I've often included that in the brief.

Then consider that if the mixture guard was indeed installed the student would have had to go through a very specific sequence of actions that is completely different to pulling the carb heat, and if they're up for going down that rabbit hole it's unlikely that being drilled in instrument selection would have come into the student's head.

And then consider what you'd like a student's reaction to be to the engine coughing ? A reflexive pull of the carb heat or a leisurely discussion about which control to actuate ? And when the engine quits due to carb icing should they discuss whether the collective is an appropriate choice ? The Blackrock SAR accident is a horrifying counter example where slavish application of two crew procedures actually caused the accident.

This is training and in the process of training (even for military) people make mistakes, and sometimes (as you well know crab having found yourself on your arse in a field once before I believe) **** happens.

"Hey Fred, I'm thinking of pulling this lever here, is that ok with you?" "Hmm,...I don't know about that one Tom, pulling it now may not work out the best for us at this time." "Gee, you're right Fred, my bad, how about this lever instead?". "Yes Tom, that one should be ok to pull."

Sure, this conversation may have saved that poor Robby from becoming "Heinz bean cans", but I just don't think I could do it every time I want to push a button, or pull a lever,...at least not without bursting into laughter! :}