Anyone Know Anything About Sebring, FL Helicopter Crash?

Warrior

Warrior

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Below is part of an article I found on local Sebring News on MSN. Anyone know anything about this?



SEBRING | A helicopter reportedly nose-dived into the ground at a sod farm near the Sebring airport late Friday afternoon, apparently killing the pilot.
No official information had been released as of Saturday afternoon, but an eyewitness spoke to the News-Sun in Sebring on Saturday morning near the scene of the crash site on the Sod, Citrus and Cane property near Sebring International Raceway.
The National Transportation Safety Board was investigating the wreckage, which was near an irrigation pond, Saturday morning.
Joshua Snell, an employee with the contracting com­- pany that helps manage the property, said the incident occurred about 5:20 p.m. Friday.
"We had been working back there all morning, then we moved up here to the front at about 12 (noon). I saw what happened. He flew over a few times, probably about four or five times. Each time he kept getting lower and lower.
"The last time he was right on top of those trees, and it looked
 
Yes, what is you would like to know. He was a very good friend of my husband.
He died on impact due to the fire. J.W. was crop dusting and was finishing up when The Bell 47 seemed to run into trouble, the low level auto rotation deemed to be fatal. We are still waiting for the finale report to be released.
 
Unregistered said:
Yes, what is you would like to know. He was a very good friend of my husband.
He died on impact due to the fire. J.W. was crop dusting and was finishing up when The Bell 47 seemed to run into trouble, the low level auto rotation deemed to be fatal. We are still waiting for the finale report to be released.
Click to expand...

My condolences. May he rest in peace.
 
Unregistered said:
Yes, what is you would like to know. He was a very good friend of my husband.
He died on impact due to the fire. J.W. was crop dusting and was finishing up when The Bell 47 seemed to run into trouble, the low level auto rotation deemed to be fatal. We are still waiting for the finale report to be released.
Click to expand...

Sorry you and your husband have to deal with that.
 
Sorry for your loss,may he rest in peace,prayers to the family.
 
I heard about it and that he had a hangar at KSEF .. haven't heard anything about the cause yet. Low level failures in a 47 leave you few options.

My condolences to family and friends. Sad deal.

RT
 
RogerT said:
I heard about it and that he had a hangar at KSEF .. haven't heard anything about the cause yet. Low level failures in a 47 leave you few options.

My condolences to family and friends. Sad deal.

RT
Click to expand...

Well, if he went in nose first on an auto I'd suspect a pitch link on the main rotor broke.
 
Never flown a 47, low altitude engine failures can pitch you into the ground before reasonable reaction times can save you.
 
Henning said:
Well, what happens when you pull collective and you have a broken link, it works the pitch asymmetrically doesn't it?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure where you are trying to go with this, but no. "If" only one pitch link was working one blade would climb and the broken link blade would fair in trail. It would shake like a dog ****ting a persimmon seed.
 
I think Henning is reading too much into a news report that he "nose-dived". I would caution against diagnosing anything off a media report on aviation, especially what might have broken.
 
He was returning from spraying and was within 2000 yards if the airport. Came over a tree line were the trouble most likely began and most likely tried to do his best and hard land it in the belly but had really low rotor rpms due to the fact the blades are bent up and not shattered. Hit on the nose and made it to where he was in able to get out of the aircraft to escape the fire. He most likely lost his engine power. I worked with Jon Whitaker and flew with him. He is one of the best pilots. He was just to low to the ground to be able to recover. We will wait and see what the final report says. Jon was a great guy and a close friend
 
Bell 47's have a high inertia rotor system. But, if the collective is not fully down it doesn't take long to bleed off rotor RPM. Once the RPM decays below approximately 80% there is no recovery.

Engine failure close to the ground it's a hard reaction to drop collective.
 
The loss of a PC link will in fact lead to pretty wild vibrations, and the one I've seen left the aircraft pretty well controllable. Pretty much anything at that altitude is unrecoverable however.

My condolences.
 
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