helo screwup ...

Man, its amazing how quickly that happened.
 
Career-limiting event. Very sad, but it could have been worse!
 
"Ride's over, huh?" :eek:

Yeah, I guess so...
 
mikea said:
Nope. It looks like he dreamed up an attempt at a decent excuse, though. I wonder if the NTSB got a copy of the video.
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The end of the NTSB report says that they did, and that upon review, they didn't see any evidence of any "drift", but they said they did see a hover of a few seconds, which I didn't see, but I'm not a helicopter pilot... looks to me like he pulled up and started forward, but I saw no pause in vertical ascent.
 
Whew. That was scary. I thought it was some kind of catastrohic failure before I read about the hanger door. That is a heart stopper! Glad all were ok. The guy with the camera was strangely composed. I assume it was his family in there. Loved it when he said "Rides Over"
 
I totally didn't see it as a rotor impact when I saw the video. I thought it was a mechanical failure. Thanks for posting the NTSB report.

The think I thought was odd was how relaxed everybody was afterwards, especially the cameraman and the guy who nonchalantly wanders on over to see if everyone's ok. I've seen this before in similar videos, and invariably somebody comments that it must be a fake video because the reactions weren't realistic. I think we can all agree this one wasn't staged, but I still think the reactions are unrealistic :)

At the very least, I would have expected the line-guy to run over and not walk slowly. Sure, once you know everybody's ok you can start cracking jokes about the ride being over and say "my appologies" and stuff like that, and try to act all cool and relaxed. But initially it would have looked to me like somebody might be injured. Maybe this guy sees helicopter crashes all the time though.

Chris
 
Redundant post -- disregard (sorry)

Sorry - link had already been posted by somebody else
 
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Not only A MORON pilot, But a WEASEL as well. It's always the other guy's fault.Nice, throwing the kid passenger under the bus.
 
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Lesson 1: If you are going to screw it up, don't do it with a camera on!
Lesson 2: Every flight, do it right.
Lesson 3: Any pilot statement ought to match the video of the event.
 
Troy Whistman said:
The end of the NTSB report says that they did, and that upon review, they didn't see any evidence of any "drift", but they said they did see a hover of a few seconds, which I didn't see, but I'm not a helicopter pilot... looks to me like he pulled up and started forward, but I saw no pause in vertical ascent.
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I saw him pull pitch into a nice hover with good directional control. Trouble is, he then kept going up until the main rotor impacted the hangar door.

Notice the power and inertia in the rotor system -- it chopped the tail boom right off (which is not uncommon when the main rotor gets that out of whack). The teetering (trunion) bearing and the coning hinges allow a significant up/down motion to the main rotor blades.

Interesting too, that it looked to me like the main rotor was pretty well bent up but didn't lose any pieces. R44 blade tips travel at 705 feet per second which is somewhere around 400 kts.

The NTSB report is at:

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief2.asp?ev_id=20040825X01288&ntsbno=CHI04LA212&akey=1

CHI04LA212

On August 5, 2004, at 1200 central daylight time, a Robinson R44, N7036J, piloted by a commercial pilot, was substantially damaged when the main rotor contacted an open hangar door during takeoff and the helicopter subsequently impacted the ground at Spirit of St. Louis Airport (SUS), Chesterfield, Missouri. The flight was being conducted under 14 CFR Part 91 and was not on a flight plan. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed. The pilot and 2 passengers reported no injuries. A third passenger reported minor injuries. The local flight was originating at the time of the accident.

In his written statement, the pilot reported that the flight was to be a local sightseeing flight for the 3 passengers. He added that the left side flight controls had been removed. The pilot stated that the helicopter was parked on the ramp approximately 35 feet from the hangar. He reported that the bi-fold hangar door was open and extended about 10 feet out over the ramp.

The pilot stated that after completing the normal start-up and pre-flight procedures, he established that the area was clear and picked up into a 6 - 8 foot hover. He reported that he began to move away from the hangar. He stated that as he did so the passenger in the left front seat turned to his right and "accidentally and inadvertently hit or bumped the counterweight portion of the cyclic as he turned."

The pilot stated that the helicopter drifted toward the open hangar door and before he could correct the drift the main rotor clipped the bottom edge of the door. He recalled: "I quickly maneuvered away from the hangar building and began to level the aircraft." The helicopter descended to the ramp. The subsequent hard landing caused the skids to collapse and the main rotor to sever the tail boom.

A ground witness to the accident submitted a video recording of the accident flight. Review of the recording revealed that after the helicopter lifted-off, it paused in a hover for a few seconds and then began to climb out, subsequently contacting the door. No drift toward the hangar building was observed prior to rotor blade contact with the door.
 
That's real easy for you to say. Have you ever had anybody bump the cyclic? I have. It's not fun, and just because I didn't see the motion, doesn't mean it didn't happen. So maybe your own words could apply? To you?
 
RotaryWingBob said:
Notice the power and inertia in the rotor system -- it chopped the tail boom right off (which is not uncommon when the main rotor gets that out of whack). The teetering (trunion) bearing and the coning hinges allow a significant up/down motion to the main rotor blades.

Interesting too, that it looked to me like the main rotor was pretty well bent up but didn't lose any pieces. R44 blade tips travel at 705 feet per second which is somewhere around 400 kts.
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It sure looked to me like at least half of one rotor blade is missing after the crash. It also seemed like tail smashed into the ground but the "after crash" picture shows a pretty clean slice in the tail boom so you're probably right about the rotor taking the tail off.
 
lancefisher said:
It sure looked to me like at least half of one rotor blade is missing after the crash. It also seemed like tail smashed into the ground but the "after crash" picture shows a pretty clean slice in the tail boom so you're probably right about the rotor taking the tail off.
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Lance, I guess we're both right about the rotor blades ;)

On looking at it again, it looks like one blade was pretty much intact, the other one seemed to have an intact spar, but had shed the outer half of the skin, and the inner part was still there but detached from the spar. The skins are very light stainless steel (so light they are easily dented). The spar forms the leading edge, is surrounded to the rear with an aluminum honey comb, and then everything (except the leading edge) is covered by the skin.

Also, on looking at it again, there seemed to be a fairly abrupt left cyclic input immediatly prior to the crash. The geometry looks like maybe the rotor disk tilt associated with that combined with the height of his hover may have put the 3 o'clock blade into the hangar door.

Did the pax bump the cyclic? Dunno... Robinsons have a center stick between and forward of the front seats with a T bar at the top. The cyclic grips hang off of each side of the T. Clearly, he had removed the grip from the left side. The good news about this arrangement is that you don't have to climb over the stick to get in and out. The bad news is that even with the left-side grip removed, it's still possible for the left seat occupant to bump the T bar. It's happened to me twice -- the first time was in flight with a fixed wing pilot in the left seat. He lightly bumped the cyclic, I tightened my grip, and it was a non-event. The second time was a month ago when I was getting my monthly dose of recurrent training. I was in a hover at a taxiway intersection doing a pedal turn to line up on the runway. The CFI (who is a good friend) reached over to play with the GNS 430 and leaned into the T bar. Again, I tightened my grip, told him to get off of the cyclic, and maintained control. Had he not acted immediately, it might have gotten hairy.

The last thing that struck me was that it's not terribly safe to operate that close to a hangar for two reasons. First is the obvious -- you might hit it. The second is less obvious -- the proximity to a building alters the aerodynamics because the building deflects the rotor wash and causes it to move up and than back down through the rotor disk on the side closest to the building.
 
smigaldi said:
Wonder if his pax ever got their flight?
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Certainly but not with that pilot. That seemed to be a pretty quick preflight after start up. And, what about a passenger briefing? Especially including an instruction to the front passenger holding their hands in their lap? I'm wondering what the FAA did in the end with regard to the pilot's review, etc. Surely other training was in short order.

I'm just glad all survived.
 
KennyFlys said:
Certainly but not with that pilot. That seemed to be a pretty quick preflight after start up. And, what about a passenger briefing? Especially including an instruction to the front passenger holding their hands in their lap? I'm wondering what the FAA did in the end with regard to the pilot's review, etc. Surely other training was in short order.

I'm just glad all survived.
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There was an obvious gap in the video. If a Robinson is cold it takes 5-6 minutes to get going. Warm engine, knock off a minute maybe. After the clutch is fully engaged and the engine is warm, the "preflight" as you put it, takes maybe 15 seconds:

1. Mag check
2. Carb heat check if not a Raven II
3. Sprag clutch check (tach needle split)
4. Spool up to 100% RRPM
5. Low RRPM warning horn check

Good to go now.

Also, he claims the flight controls were removed from the left side. I couldn't be certain that the antitorque pedals and collective were removed (these take maybe 10 seconds to take out), but I could verify that the cyclic grip was removed.

His real sins IMO are lack of caution in a confined space and failing to provide overhead clearance.
 
I go to that airport often. Now I know why they have all their helo's parked at the edge of the grass.
If you look in the video you can see it WAY out there in front of the hangar.
 
RotaryWingBob said:
His real sins IMO are lack of caution in a confined space and failing to provide overhead clearance.
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Agreed. Make a marked pad on the ramp clear away from people and buildings, use that for your takeoffs and landings. How hard could that be?
 
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