Accident In Saskatchewan?

[sirlandsalot]

It seems a little strange that the disk was so low....It said they were in 'skeg, power on...fly the machine and keep disk out of the way,no?

 

 

you seem to think it was that simple? jumping to conclusion no?

[FREDDIE]

Hey guys I see this kind of situation all the time. Lets not go on a witch hunt. Skeg,snow mud same stuff we all deal with it. Lets learn from this incident because really we are only a step away from it being you. Rotor hazards are real and we need to keep from getting complacent. So rather than picking the little stuff out of this report see where you can improve your operation to keep this from happening where you are.

[Zazu]

Hey guys I see this kind of situation all the time. Lets not go on a witch hunt. Skeg,snow mud same stuff we all deal with it. Lets learn from this incident because really we are only a step away from it being you. Rotor hazards are real and we need to keep from getting complacent. So rather than picking the little stuff out of this report see where you can improve your operation to keep this from happening where you are.

You got it FREDDIE! As for myself, having worked on both ends of the stick I am pretty graphic when it comes to briefings. Much to my superiors chagrin on occasion. If you fly in snow, muskeg, regen etc there is only one way a pilot is going to land. You can brief people up to the eyeballs but just like learning to be a pilot, much is the same for those that work on the ground.

 

Point in Fact: I was a rigger (7 years btw at the time) walking down hill while the 206 was on the pad. I saw the blades, and I nonchalantly crawled belly first over the log at the 11 O Clock position with the blades maybe 2-3 feet over my head...AND MY WELL SUPPLIED BACK PACK on MY BACK!

 

I did not understand anything about under slung rotor systems, tilting, tailwind pads, etc. I had no idea at the time that the disc could rotate in a downwards fashion because the un nailed pad, lee-ward swirling downflow winds, and the instinctive nature of a pilot to maintain steady skids could ultimately result in my demise. What I did do was look him in the eye and did the exact opposite of what years of experience would dictate and watch his eyes grow bigger and continue on.

 

Remarkably enough I received a rather abrasive and no-holds barred, red faced, verbal #### kicking from the support pilot after the fact. And I use his words every day when dealing with people like I was because as he put it I AM FN HELPLESS IF YOU HAVE A BRAINFART! AND I HAVE TO WATCH! His words.

 

FREDDIE, I think If I had of pulled the same stunt in Wasilinka would have done the same lol!

[helicopterjim]

. I saw the blades, and I nonchalantly crawled belly first over the log at the 11 O Clock position with the blades maybe 2-3 feet over my head...AND MY WELL SUPPLIED BACK PACK on MY BACK!

 

 

 

That is the part that scares me ... you can brief them until the cows come home but you may never know what goes on inside THEIR HEAD (not picking on you AZA - very brave of you to tell us your story).

 

I try to make parts of the briefing appropriate to the passengers ..... after the standard briefing I will use language that they MAY understand. For the young and dumb type I ask them if they like head ... because if they walk into the main blades it will be the last head they ever get. Same for the tail rotor - it could be the last piece of tail they ever get. For grown ups (riggers were never considered grownups - AZA will forgive me) I appeal to them to think of THEIR wives, children and loved ones. If you can give them something meaningful to remember you MAY just give them the tools to look after themselves around a helicopter because as the pilot that Zazu provided an increase of adrenaline to said "I AM FN HELPLESS IF YOU HAVE A BRAINFART! AND I HAVE TO WATCH!" You may be able to do something but not very FN likely ....

[ray]

I was in a seismic camp many years ago with an A-Star. It had to go in for a major component change, so a 206L-3 was brought in as a replacement for 2 days.

Different aircraft, new safety briefing was required. As the pilot was giving the briefing, the crews were zoned out, not really paying attention.

 

So I climbed up the side, slowly rotated the blade to the forward of the aircraft over one of the guys heads, and pushed the teetering blade to slap the guy's head. Woke everybody up immediately.

 

Hey guys, the last aircraft didn't do that, did it? This one's different, so pay attention!!

 

After a pause, the pilot gave me a 'thank you' and continued.

[Zoltar]

 

 

you seem to think it was that simple? jumping to conclusion no?

I think the report was extremely "simple", to the point of being ridiculous and with no bearing on reality whatsoever. I had a camp full of Geos, IP, line-cutters and drillers to whom I was trying to explain this "bog" incident especially after Henry almost de-lammed my blades with his head a day or 2 before I read about this "muskeg blade-strike"

[sirlandsalot]

I recall a incident a few years back, I think it was a 500 toed in and a guy geo?? walked up into the blades, the pilot could not do anything but watch due to exiting personal or something along the lines of that.

[Feliks]

A very similar case was in Poland .. Presumably rotor blade split into several parts and one part was struck in the head rescuer ...

 

http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katastrofa_lotnicza_w_Dolinie_Olczyskiej

 

 

Andrew

[Harmonic_Vibe]

HOLY COW!!!!

[Skywork]

Unfortunately I have been in the position of a person walking into the tail rotor that ended in the death of the person involved. We had briefed and told every on the operation that they were not to approach the helicopter at any time without being accompanied by our ground crew. This briefing had been done a couple of times during the morning. The person involved had been sent away to move equipment to the next site but decided to come back from a different direction directly from the 7 o,clock position looking forward and he walked with a bit of a crouch and walked straight into the blade without any ground crew seeing him till just before he connected with the blade but it was to late to stop him. That evening I had numerous calls from other pilots telling me how close they had with similar horror stories and near misses. An investigation took place and the insurance company started proceedings against the persons employer for negligence in which they obviously fought until the accident investigation came out that cleared our operation and procedures which included interviews with all the places we had worked in the proceeding 2 weeks with regard to our operations and briefings. The company we were contracted paid out 90k for helicopter repairs.

If one thing is for certain is that people around helicopters are our biggest threat to ruining a good days flying and I push this fact onto our new and low houred pilots. It is fine to sit back and presumed that somewhere along the line that a pilot or ground crew has not done their job but people are unpredictable when a machine is running and they think they are doing us a favour by being in a hurry to get gear out or to move away from the helicopter. I hope the pilot involved in this forum accident gets back to flying soon and I know that the jokes during safety briefings that people make about walking into the tail rotors and blades will be responded to by the pilot involved here in a different way to how they were responded to before this accident. Good luck to him and all the best and I hope he/she gets back to work and to carry on enjoying the freedom of flight sooner than later.

 

Brent