PA28 vs R22 Midair video

SOB8604

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OB
I believe this video was recently released, accident was from last fall, did a search on PoA and didn't see anything.

How in the hell:


Thankfully everyone walked away.
 
Notice where the wing on the Cherokee failed? Spar attachment like the Arrow at Embrey Riddle. I suppose that’s a logical failure point but I wouldn’t have expected it from that collision. Glad they were ok.
 
I'm going to guess, the dark colored helicopter against the darkness of the trees in the distance, made it hard to see. Tail on the R22 has a small profile as well.
 
Notice where the wing on the Cherokee failed? Spar attachment like the Arrow at Embrey Riddle. I suppose that’s a logical failure point but I wouldn’t have expected it from that collision. Glad they were ok.
I think the collision bent the spar back near the joint. That would make the wing fail upward much more easily.
 
I'm going to guess, the dark colored helicopter against the darkness of the trees in the distance, made it hard to see. Tail on the R22 has a small profile as well.
Looks like the R22 was descending to land. He might have been above the Cherokee's line of sight when he began the takeoff run.

In any case it appears that there was a lack of communication.
 
I think the collision bent the spar back near the joint. That would make the wing fail upward much more easily.
And I’d guess the pilot was pulling hard when they saw the helicopter.
 
Ooh, I remember hearing about this one. I’m not going to point fingers, because I know first hand how difficult those Robinson helicopters are to spot from the air, unlike most of the Bell series. Sevierville has their fair share of both.

I do question how neither of them made positive contact with each other while being right on airport property like that though.
 
I’d never seen that video, so thanks for sharing. That’s exactly why there is verbiage about avoiding the flow of fixed wing traffic.
 
Reminds me about one of my first training flights at KGTU.

Doing Touch and Gos, departure to crosswind turn and there under my (now banked) right wing and low is an Apache in a hover.

Didn’t hear them on freq, CFI didn’t hear them on freq. I’m sure they were farther away than I remember, but that was an eye opener for me.
 
Thanks for sharing,non towered ,communication is key.
 
There’s lots of rotary wing training at KTIX (Titusville, Fl). Since I fly out of KORL (Orlando, FL) I use the same practice area and use KTIX as well. I keep my eyes peeled!
 
What got knocked off the R22? Engine cowling? The tail rotor is still there.
Was this a fatal or serious injury or?
 
What got knocked off the R22? Engine cowling? The tail rotor is still there.
Was this a fatal or serious injury or?
Surprisingly, it doesn’t appear that anything came off of the R22. What you see falling is part of the Cherokee’s left wing tip.

Only minor injuries occurred from both of these!
 
What was the R22 doing? They appeared to be approaching the midpoint of the runway at 90 degrees. Did I misinterpret that?
 
Wow. I don't understand how the Cherokee could not see the chopper, and maybe veer off and avoid contact. Seems like the chopper would be noticed that close to and/on the runway. :dunno:
 
Wow. I don't understand how the Cherokee could not see the chopper, and maybe veer off and avoid contact. Seems like the chopper would be noticed that close to and/on the runway. :dunno:

You’d be surprised at how much you don’t see.
 
Wow. I don't understand how the Cherokee could not see the chopper, and maybe veer off and avoid contact. Seems like the chopper would be noticed that close to and/on the runway. :dunno:

I know I was surprised during my first flight in a a plane with a dash mounted traffic detector (pre-ADS-B) how many other aircraft were out there that I would have never spotted with its help. Some were hard to spot even with the detector giving direction. In this video, compare the dark color of the aircraft to the dark background the trees present. And it is almost stationary in hover, so not much movement to catch your eye.
 
"He was confident his calls on the radio were heard."

Found this quote in the accident report. Unless there was some kind of acknowledgement, which the report didn't mention, I wonder what led to this confidence.
 
"He was confident his calls on the radio were heard."

Found this quote in the accident report. Unless there was some kind of acknowledgement, which the report didn't mention, I wonder what led to this confidence.
It was a non towered field. You wouldn't expect any acknowledgement to any calls for downwind, base, final ect... the assumption is that you were heard and another pilot will speak up only if there is a conflict between what you intend and what he is doing.

What I found interesting was that he had just landed, without any other information but what you see in the video you would assume that he was taking off. If he had just kept it on the ground this may have ended up as a very near miss instead of a collision. I guess it goes to show that our normal instinct is to pull up instead of push the nose down which is why routinely practicing stall recovery is very important to me.
 
I am not a helicopter pilot, so I don't know what the rules are, but it seems rather odd that a helicopter would remain stationary over a runway. I thought that they always landed on the taxiways or aprons.
 
"He was confident his calls on the radio were heard."

Found this quote in the accident report. Unless there was some kind of acknowledgement, which the report didn't mention, I wonder what led to this confidence.

This, unless you are talking to each other and responding you can't be confident of anything. I fly out of KFIT and the Mass State Police helicopter seems to land there a lot. They are very professional as I expect them to be, one time he was arriving as I was departing. I announced my departure, he announced his arrival, but it was unclear to me what he was doing, so I told him I would hold for him. He replied that he was landing on a taxiway pad wasn't going across my runway, that he would not be a factor for me and had me in sight, he was fine with me departing, found him visually and departed. Had we not spoken, I would have waited.
 
I am not a helicopter pilot, so I don't know what the rules are, but it seems rather odd that a helicopter would remain stationary over a runway. I thought that they always landed on the taxiways or aprons.

Most of the helicopter ops I see don't involve the runway, but they might as well be space ops as far as I'm concerned, they are cool, but I wouldn't want to run into one.
 
Dang and nobody was hurt. Thats amazing! Those arrow wings though....so unsafe, even if the plane did roll over on that wing and take all the brunt.
 
One thing pilots do is to fixate our vision on the centerline, or other area of interest - at the expense of other important things which need lookin' at.

I flew many years without eyeballing the taxiways, the crossing runways while in the pattern. Probably did not swing my head left to right as I approach intersections on take-off like I do now. As a few examples.
 
Feel bad for all involved. As a rotorhead at heart with no budget to back it up, I firmly believe rotorcraft and fixed wing should not be operating on the same runway environment. We get H60s around here and although the Guard is very considerate, its not the manners I worry about. It's the rotor wash that scares the begeezers out of me.
 
It was a non towered field. You wouldn't expect any acknowledgement to any calls for downwind, base, final ect... the assumption is that you were heard and another pilot will speak up only if there is a conflict between what you intend and what he is doing.

Which is exactly why the question as to how someone can be "confident" that his transmissions were heard.
 
Anyone else notice the dude walking in the foreground who appears to be completely oblivious to the crash that happens right in front of him?
 
Most of the helicopter ops I see don't involve the runway

Every helicopter takeoff, landing, and autorotation I’ve done has involved a runway (not that many since it has only been 10 hours). But still helicopters do frequently use runways.
 
Anyone else notice the dude walking in the foreground who appears to be completely oblivious to the crash that happens right in front of him?
Yeah he seemed to look away tight when it happened. You would think he heard a crunch!

I happened to do almost the exact same thing at my airport. I looked away right before a guy spun in the pattern and I heard a crunch. He was nowhere to be seen - and there was no way he could have flown out of my sight that fast. Fatal. :(
 
Anyone else notice the dude walking in the foreground who appears to be completely oblivious to the crash that happens right in front of him?

I noticed that as well. He did watch the ending, then started running towards the plane when it stopped sliding.

One time I watched a C-210 on final. I noticed he was a little high, but not that it would be a problem. He crossed the threshold still a little high, but I could see he would touch down a little long but no problem. I looked away as I opened the door to the plane and started putting gear inside. I looked back to see where the 210 was and he was no where in sight.

Turned out when he touched down he got on the brakes a little hard, then released the brakes but the left brake didn't release. That put him off the runway and into the ditch. I never heard a thing. Nice skid mark going off the runway. No damage, except to the pilots pride.
 
Anyone else notice the dude walking in the foreground who appears to be completely oblivious to the crash that happens right in front of him?
Heh! Yeah, after it happened, it almost looked like he was in a great state of shock and it took several seconds to process what he just saw before running at full steam toward the accident site.
 
I'm going to guess, the dark colored helicopter against the darkness of the trees in the distance, made it hard to see. Tail on the R22 has a small profile as well.

Those little gnats are impossible to see.
 
Notice where the wing on the Cherokee failed? Spar attachment like the Arrow at Embrey Riddle. I suppose that’s a logical failure point but I wouldn’t have expected it from that collision. Glad they were ok.
Why not? Most of the weight plus forward motion was being levered off the attach point.
 
I suppose that’s a logical failure point but I wouldn’t have expected it from that collision. Glad they were ok.
I noticed that too, the helicopter was virtually undamaged it seems. That tiny little 4 inch or whatever piece of metal that connects the wing to the body, I'm sorry but just seems too small my opinion.

A Mooney will drill halfway through a house and both wings will stay on
 
It kinda surprises me that the helicopter stayed upright
Gyroscopic stability is an powerful force. Even more so when it’s working against you, but in this case it was a huge benefit.
 
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