Bittersweet day, another crash at CRQ.

StinkBug

StinkBug

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I was at the airport all day today, took my AMEL checkride and passed. Afterwards I decided to take my mom for a ride in the Seneca to return it to MYF and pick up our Mooney. When we landed I had a text from a friend telling me that there was a helicopter crash at CRQ just after we took off. 2 fatal :(

We ended up getting dinner at Casa Machado and getting a ride back from a friend. When we got there all the lights were out including the beacon and the parking lot was jammed with news vans. I talked to some friends who saw it in person and it sounded pretty awful.

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Plane-Crashes-at-Palomar-Airport--351555541.html
 
Story over on the Red Board is that they attempted to get out while is was spinning on the ground.
 
Anybody else think it took a little too long for them to get water/foam on it after the blades flew off? In the video they said the engine was still turning but it seemed to take for ever for the ARFF truck to get up and then for the nozzle to start spraying.

I would have thought that since the truck was sitting there while it spun they would have had something on it within a few seconds of the blades coming off.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Initial thought is I'm surprised that there were two fatals, but then the video doesn't show the actual landing. Watching how long it just spins there on the ground, I suspect they were killed on initial landing/impact.
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That was my thought as well unless for some reason they were unable to shut down the engine. I don't know how the fuel cutoff works in that thing.
 
ChemGuy said:
Anybody else think it took a little too long for them to get water/foam on it after the blades flew off? In the video they said the engine was still turning but it seemed to take for ever for the ARFF truck to get up and then for the nozzle to start spraying.

I would have thought that since the truck was sitting there while it spun they would have had something on it within a few seconds of the blades coming off.
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I thought the exact same thing. The truck was right there maybe a couple hundred feet away the whole time. Once the blades broke off and it stopped spinning, the support vehicles made it on scene from MUCH further away well before the truck moved in. Personally, I think I would have hit the gas as soon as I saw the blades break off.
 
Fearless Tower said:
I thought the exact same thing. The truck was right there maybe a couple hundred feet away the whole time. Once the blades broke off and it stopped spinning, the support vehicles made it on scene from MUCH further away well before the truck moved in. Personally, I think I would have hit the gas as soon as I saw the blades break off.
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The acceleration rate on those ARFF trucks is slow as hell. The book numbers for the Strykers at ORD are like 0-50mph in 35 seconds. That's for a new truck.
 
They tried to land on a helicopter cart, botched it. Unclear if they were ejected or tried to get out but both were essentially ground into the ramp by the Fuselage rotation on top of them.

Wondering it it was Civic's or not.
 
I don't know much about helo stuff, but I assume you could cut fuel? seems like perhaps they were incapacitated.
 
I've listened to the LiveATC, and talked to some people who were there. It wasn't a crash like you normally think of where they impact the ground. They came in and tried to land on a cart, and were in control. According to the pilots radio call the cart wasn't chocked and was "like a skateboard". Tower and ground both tell him to "let me know when you wanna take off again". A few minutes later the ground controllers reaction can be heard and all clearances are cancelled.

From the recordings and witnesses I've talked to it sounds like this happened after he landed, and as he was trying to take off again. What's unclear to me is why he'd be landing on a cart at all if he was just gonna take off again a few minutes later, and even moreso why he'd continue to try landing on a cart he knew wasn't secure. Easy enough to just move over and land directly on the asphalt.
 
One report said the helicopter struck the tail boom. ,causing the tail section to come off. Which caused the rotation of the helicopter,not sure why they didn't pull power and mixture.
 
It is always sad when things don’t work out.

The news story from KGTV says the helicopter is an AS350 and they did some digging and the report goes on at some length about accidents is AS350s.

The FAA preliminary accident report has it shown as a Bell 407, an aircraft with a very
low accident rate.

I wouldn’t want to get near a helicopter with spinning rotor blades.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Initial thought is I'm surprised that there were two fatals, but then the video doesn't show the actual landing. Watching how long it just spins there on the ground, I suspect they were killed on initial landing/impact.
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I was thing the same, at least rendered unconscious, and that means a 25-50G landing.:eek: Given that, I am amazed at the airframe sitting there spinning like that. What was the helicopter, could you tell? That's a pretty tough airframe.
 
Fearless Tower said:
That would make sense. The news story says he was a relatively new pilot.
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How does it make sense to get out of a running meat cleaver and leave the cleaver power on?:dunno: If that really happened all I can say is "Wow, Darwin winners for 2015 for sure." What part of "keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times until it comes to a full stop" did they fail to learn in life? This is aviation, panic escape doesn't typically produce good results.
 
Henning said:
I was thing the same, at least rendered unconscious, and that means a 25-50G landing.:eek: Given that, I am amazed at the airframe sitting there spinning like that. What was the helicopter, could you tell? That's a pretty tough airframe.
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Go up a couple posts. There was no ground impact. They landed and apparently struck the tail rotor while taking off again.
 
Henning said:
How does it make sense to get out of a running meat cleaver and leave the cleaver power on?:dunno:
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I meant that, if true, it makes sense that they were killed in what should have been a survivable accident.
 
I know nothing about helicopter controls, nor do I have any experience with Turbines in general. Are they shut down in a similar manner to a normal piston airplane, just by pulling mixture? Is it possible that the centrifugal force slinging them outward could prevent them from reaching the control to shut down? That's the only reason I can imagine someone not shutting down the engine in this scenario.
 
Unit74 said:
They tried to land on a helicopter cart, botched it. Unclear if they were ejected or tried to get out but both were essentially ground into the ramp by the Fuselage rotation on top of them.

Wondering it it was Civic's or not.
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StinkBug said:
Go up a couple posts. There was no ground impact. They landed and apparently struck the tail rotor while taking off again.
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Wow, ok, thanks, These guys are my Darwin Award nominees for 2015. The lesson, Never give up on the ship until it fails on you. The safest place you can be around a helicopter ground failure is strapped into the cockpit. You are out of the potential arcs of high energy projectiles. Had they been strapped in they would have climbed out the door. The fire truck delay was probably caused by the remains, "Do we just hose them down?" "Eehhh, see what the fire does...yeah, better go ahead."

But what is most confounding is the failure to shut down, what's up with that? If they didn't take a hard hit, I'm having trouble picturing not being able to shut it down.:dunno: If they just freaked and ran, well, good thing it happened now and not in a revenue pax carrying emergency.
 
StinkBug said:
I've listened to the LiveATC, and talked to some people who were there. It wasn't a crash like you normally think of where they impact the ground. They came in and tried to land on a cart, and were in control. According to the pilots radio call the cart wasn't chocked and was "like a skateboard". Tower and ground both tell him to "let me know when you wanna take off again". A few minutes later the ground controllers reaction can be heard and all clearances are cancelled.

From the recordings and witnesses I've talked to it sounds like this happened after he landed, and as he was trying to take off again. What's unclear to me is why he'd be landing on a cart at all if he was just gonna take off again a few minutes later, and even moreso why he'd continue to try landing on a cart he knew wasn't secure. Easy enough to just move over and land directly on the asphalt.
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From your description, it sounds like his original intention was to full stop on the cart, but the cart wasn't secured. Tower probably told him to let them know if he was taking off again (to reposition) since they'd need to deconflict the airspace around the field.

It sounds like he struck the tail rotor on the cart as he was trying to lift off again. That would indeed get a helo spinning around in circles like what you see in the video.
 
Fearless Tower said:
From your description, it sounds like his original intention was to full stop on the cart, but the cart wasn't secured. Tower probably told him to let them know if he was taking off again (to reposition) since they'd need to deconflict the airspace around the field.

It sounds like he struck the tail rotor on the cart as he was trying to lift off again. That would indeed get a helo spinning around in circles like what you see in the video.
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It certainly would, however it doesn't explain their reaction to the situation.:confused::dunno:
 
Henning said:
It certainly would, however it doesn't explain their reaction to the situation.:confused::dunno:
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Sometimes, people do stupid things, especially if they are the type to rush in to a new hobby. I don't know much about civil helos, but I don't think an AS350 is a beginner helicopter.

Personally, I've seen enough videos of helos destroying themselves on the ground to know that you stay friggin' put until the thing stops moving. Then you unbuckle and get the hell out!
 
Fearless Tower said:
Sometimes, people do stupid things, especially if they are the type to rush in to a new hobby. I don't know much about civil helos, but I don't think an AS350 is a beginner helicopter.

Personally, I've seen enough videos of helos destroying themselves on the ground to know that you stay friggin' put until the thing stops moving. Then you unbuckle and get the hell out!
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The AS-350 is a beginner's helicopter for the wealthy. Plenty of money in the area that it is potential for him to be very low time. Anyone with high 7 figure income or above and a hard on for helicopters could be expected to be found in one from early training on.
 
Vance Breese said:
The news story from KGTV says the helicopter is an AS350 and they did some digging and the report goes on at some length about accidents is AS350s.

The FAA preliminary accident report has it shown as a Bell 407, an aircraft with a very
low accident rate.
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Yeah, I'm not sure where the Astar report came from. The LiveATC clip seems to indicate it was N711BE, which is a Bell 407.
 
Now that the pilot has been identified they are now saying he's been flying for around 50 years and has over 12000 hours. The whole newbie argument is falling apart there. I'm still wondering about centrifugal forces. That thing was spinning around pretty fast, and the seats are pretty far out from the axis of rotation. I'm wondering if they had the muscle power to do anything at all.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Yeah, I'm not sure where the Astar report came from. The LiveATC clip seems to indicate it was N711BE, which is a Bell 407.
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That was what my boss had, and he exemplifies the rich guy using a 407 for ab initio training.
 
StinkBug said:
Now that the pilot has been identified they are now saying he's been flying for around 50 years and has over 12000 hours. The whole newbie argument is falling apart there. I'm still wondering about centrifugal forces. That thing was spinning around pretty fast, and the seats are pretty far out from the axis of rotation. I'm wondering if they had the muscle power to do anything at all.
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If you are belted in, there is no amount of spinning that will throw you out through the door.
 
Henning said:
If you are belted in, there is no amount of spinning that will throw you out through the door.
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I would add belted in properly.

Question: Would an inertial reel belt lock in a situation where centripetal force built up slowly? I don't think it would.

Assuming they got thrown out, I think it would make a better case for manually tightened harnesses.
 
That is so sad. I don't know why he didn't pull the power, and mixture either. Maybe the g's from spinning stopped him from being able to reach the controls? Just a wild *ss guess.
 
StinkBug said:
Now that the pilot has been identified they are now saying he's been flying for around 50 years and has over 12000 hours. The whole newbie argument is falling apart there. I'm still wondering about centrifugal forces. That thing was spinning around pretty fast, and the seats are pretty far out from the axis of rotation. I'm wondering if they had the muscle power to do anything at all.
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There are two helicopter rated pilots with that exact name in the database. One a relatively new PP (but address is Montana) and another commercial rated helo who commercial certificate was issued in 1981 but address is not listed. I suspect that is the one involved which would indeed indicate he wasn't a newbie.
 
Fearless Tower said:
There are two helicopter rated pilots with that exact name in the database. One a relatively new PP (but address is Montana) and another commercial rated helo who commercial certificate was issued in 1981 but address is not listed. I suspect that is the one involved which would indeed indicate he wasn't a newbie.
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The news article posted above identifying the victims stated the pilot was the CEO of a bank in Montana.....

According to Bloomberg News, Erickson was the CEO of American Bank in Montana.
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Anthony said:
That is so sad. I don't know why he didn't pull the power, and mixture either. Maybe the g's from spinning stopped him from being able to reach the controls? Just a wild *ss guess.
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Ive been following this thread on 3 different boards. Seems conflicting stories about what happened before the video picks up, but one who was allegedly thee said that they hit hard on the initial impact which may indeed have incapacitated them.

When the Navy lost the H-60 in the Red Sea a couple years ago, the helicopter was spinning on deck and was chocked chained down. A wave came up into the rotor arc and broke a blade off. The aircraft immediately
ripped itself apart right there on the flight deck and then went over the side. The guys who observed it happen saw the pilots get flung around like toy dolls inside - there was no way they could pull power off or shut anything down.

From other details that have been coming out, I doubt the validity of the story that they tried to egress while it was still spinning. It sounds more like they were ejected from the aircraft as it was spinning.
 
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StinkBug said:
I know nothing about helicopter controls, nor do I have any experience with Turbines in general. Are they shut down in a similar manner to a normal piston airplane, just by pulling mixture? Is it possible that the centrifugal force slinging them outward could prevent them from reaching the control to shut down? That's the only reason I can imagine someone not shutting down the engine in this scenario.
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The AS350 has has a twist grip throttle like a lot of helicopters. Usually they have several detents such as off, idle, fly. To shutdown the aircraft, all the pilot has to do is twist the throttle to the off position. Not sure if this particular AS350 has FADEC, but usually there's a test over speed button that will shutdown the engine while at idle. Of course the aircraft has an emergency fuel valve shutoff lever but that would take a few seconds.

It appears in the vid that they weren't in the fly position. Maybe somewhere in between and couldn't get the throttle off for whatever reason. AS-350 rotor spins clockwise as do most European helos hence the rapid left yaw. Not sure if it had a rotor brake or not but at the rate they were spinning, I don't think it would have done much good.

RIP
 
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