Video of Helicopter crash

hollywood · Post by **hollywood** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 2:48 am

http://www.killsometime.com/Video/video.asp?ID=66

Crazy video ive never seen before.

jimmyjazz · Post by **jimmyjazz** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 6:20 am

WTF was going on there. I know nothing about heliocopters but I've watched other crash videos of them and they usually seem pretty controlled unless they roll on the ground or hit something with the rotor what could have been going on here?

Wait I know maybe a Bumble Bee got inside.

arewethereyet · Post by **arewethereyet** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 6:50 am

loss of tail rotor!!

CAL · Post by **CAL** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 7:01 am

looking like the pilot did not walk away.....

gryphon · Post by **gryphon** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 8:15 am

Loss/failure of tail rotor.
All walked away ok.

Blakey · Post by **Blakey** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 8:16 am

CAL wrote:looking like the pilot did not walk away.....

Turn up your sound!

Lommer · Post by **Lommer** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 8:39 am

Man if he had managed to stick it to that roof instead of falling into that parking lot that would've been amazing.

helijason · Post by **helijason** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 8:39 am

The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident as follows:

The pilot's failure to maintain control of the helicopter after a loss of hydraulic system pressure due to a failure of the hydraulic pump belt.

low n over · Post by **low n over** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 8:46 am

Looks more like a poorly handled Hydraulic failure.

CAL · Post by **CAL** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 8:57 am

opps....ya in the office no sound....that is great news!! man looked like the front of it just dis-integrated...good to hear..

Bubbaganoosh · Post by **Bubbaganoosh** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 11:00 am

CAL wrote:opps....ya in the office no sound....that is great news!! man looked like the front of it just dis-integrated...good to hear..

Gee, cant anyone come up with something recent??

ch135146 · Post by **ch135146** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 2:54 pm

low n over wrote:Looks more like a poorly handled Hydraulic failure.

So, you're a helicopter pilot? Ever had an actual control failure in a helicopter?

If "no" to either question, STFU.

Glory. · Post by **Glory.** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 5:52 pm

ch135146 wrote:
low n over wrote:Looks more like a poorly handled Hydraulic failure.
So, you're a helicopter pilot? Ever had an actual control failure in a helicopter?

If "no" to either question, STFU.

linecrew · Post by **linecrew** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 4:13 am

jimmyjazz wrote:WTF was going on there. I know nothing about heliocopters but I've watched other crash videos of them and they usually seem pretty controlled unless they roll on the ground or hit something with the rotor what could have been going on here?

Here are links to the official NTSB reports:

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/GenPDF.asp?id= ... 117&rpt=fa

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/GenPDF.asp?id= ... 117&rpt=fi

rotorhead350 · Post by **rotorhead350** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 8:01 am

It was apparently a hydraulic failure caused by a mechanic putting the hydraulic belt on upside down. These particular belts are marked for installation with an arrow so how the guy/gal missed it is anyones guess. I have loads of experience working on these machines and let me tell you the hydraulic system is very hokey. They have now gone to a Poly V belt which is mandatory here in Canada. Not sure about the US though. Anyways it is still an all-round great little machine, very fast and quiet..............rh350

sky's the limit · Post by **sky's the limit** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 8:28 am

ch135146 wrote:
low n over wrote:Looks more like a poorly handled Hydraulic failure.
So, you're a helicopter pilot? Ever had an actual control failure in a helicopter?

If "no" to either question, STFU.

Yes, fly the Astar, and it was hyrdraulic failure handled poorly. The pilot intially radioed a tail rotor failure for some reason, leading to the belief that was the primary issue, it doesn't seem to have been.

There are three(in a B2, two in BA, B) hyrdraulic accumulators that give you several seconds of pressure to SLOW THE A/C DOWN before they are exhuasted. The proceedure is to get the airspeed back to 50-70kts and then manually dump the remaining pressure in the accumulators so you loose all the pressure at once, if you do not, then one accumulator will run out before the others, ie. the cyclic, then control becomes very difficult. Not reading through the NTSB reports, it seems the pilot here did not follow that proceedure.

The machine is quite flyable with no hyrdraulics, however the a/s MUST be slow (50-70) or the control forces are too great to overcome due to aerodynamic loading.

STL

rotorhead350 · Post by **rotorhead350** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 10:04 am

Bang on STL. As well as the new belt there was a Diode that had to be installed so that when you dumped hydraulics the accumulators were bled off at the same time....................rh350

ch135146 · Post by **ch135146** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 11:31 am

Hi STL and RH350,

Okay, I have not flown the AS350. My experience is on the B212 and B206. Due to long term health effects of near-fatal injuries suffered in a 1984 B212 hi-hover tail rotor failure, I had to stop flying in 1992.

So I have experienced the incredibly rapid onset of "violence" and disorientation felt in the cockpit of a helicopter out-of-control. (The violence of impact with the ground is a separate thing!) (Not to mention the rotor head and main transmission collapsing into the cockpit too.)

Before it happened to me, I too used to jump to the conclusion that the poor bastard pilot "poorly handled" the emergency, i.e. didn't follow the checklist procedure properly. But helo flight control failures, more often than not, result in damage and sometimes injury or death.

Even when handled correctly initially, the inherent instability of the machine and the demanding environments they are flown in, often stack the deck against a happy landing.

In the case we are discussing, the news chopper was hovering at 1,000 to 1,200 feet over Brooklyn just before the problem.

I've read that the AS350 emergency procedure with a hydraulic failure recommends foward flight (40-60 knots,) flat approach to a clear landing area, and a run-on landing. And, that this helicopter requires ample physical strength to fly without hydraulic boost.

So, he had to transition from 0 Knots at 1000AGL to the book speed and put it down ASAP. Sounds pretty easy to read; much tougher in practice.

While he did not correctly identify the hydraulic failure or follow the correct "switchology," I think he would have been pretty much fucked even if he had, given the subsequent flight profile and terrain required for a successful conclusion, and, that the controls were going stiff.

p.s. Too bad the film didn't show the whole sequence.

Regards, Steve

ch135146 · Post by **ch135146** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 11:56 am

Also, I wish to apologize to low n over.

I was in a mood and shouldn't have posted that

sky's the limit · Post by **sky's the limit** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 2:33 pm

Hi Steve,

Sorry to hear about the 212 accident, I just came off my first season on it, scary situation.

With the Astar, the horn will sound at the intial stages of a hydraulic failure, and the accumulators are there to provide up to 30 seconds of control movement, but, and it's a serious but, rapid control movements WILL drain them much faster. In the case of a failure in the hover, the controls would not go stiff immeadiatly, but the horn would sound.

At that point there should be ample time to tranistion to the required 40-60kt safe a/s. If however this was not achieved, the a/c wold become difficult to control.

Hyraulics off in the Astar is not much different than that of a 206, it can be hovered, and flown to a slow approch. Nervousness and/or a delyed reaction to the failire would cause some issues - and rightly so!

Anyway, time to go for a trip.

STL