5 killed in tourist helicopter crash in Smoky Mountains

Someones comment:

"My condolences to the families involved.

I have two life rules: Never get in a helicopter. Never get in a small plane."
 
MarcoDA40 said:
Someones comment:

"My condolences to the families involved.

I have two life rules: Never get in a helicopter. Never get in a small plane."
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Pretty boring life they've got since I assume they've also ruled out boats, cars and motorcycles as too dangerous because I'm sure they're basing their assessments on facts and statistics rather than hysteria and overblown new coverage...

RIP to those lost.
 
I lived in that area for a few years. Hated it with a passion, but my house was high up on a hill and overlooked a large stretch of land leading up to the mountains. As much as I didn't like living in east TN, I still loved sitting on the porch and watching all of the helicopters coming and going from that place. Very sad.
 
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Condolences to the family. I've got a picture of me and the wife on the wall when we did one of the smoky mountain helo tours. One of the coolest experiences we had. I miss living in east Tn.
 
Hits some what close to home, a friend of mine flew with Smokey Mtn Helicopters giving tours, and i was able to get free rides with him while he was there, flew on several rides. An absolute blast. I know it was one of the two bell 206's they fly. I cannot believe it. Prayers to the families so very very sad. Breaks my heart.
 
Very sad. I flew contract work for Smokey Mountain Helicopters in the 1980s when it was based in Maryville just south of KTYS. At that time they were a full service helicopter outfit with a maintenance shop, a lot of charter work and gov't contracts.
I can only guess that Bob Bailey sold out to the current owners.
 
Very sad,may they rest in peace.
 
My friends brother actually flies for them. Thankfully it wasnt him but I feel for the families affected. Still unsure what exactly happened


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It was very windy and gusty across eastern TN yesterday, enough so that it was shoving my 5200# pickup all over the highway and it was a chore to keep it in my lane. I am sure there were some interesting rotors and turb up there in the mountains yesterday.
 
Very Sad... I know every time I fly down there to KGKT the helicopters are very busy.. It will be interesting to see what the cause is..
 
5 people loaded in a tour helicopter that was almost 40 years old.......RIP.
 
Registration came out and sure enough it was the helicopter my friend took me for several rides in. Hard to process what happened. My friend who flew with Smoky Mtn Helicopters when he took me for rides, said it had just gotten a new engine not long before we flew in it and that was a year or two ago now, he now flies for MedEvac, thankful it wasn't him. Had some good memories in the helo, my first bell 206 I flew in. Man, sad sad situation.
 
Where does the media find these idiots?

Gary C. Robb, a Kansas City attorney who wrote a book on helicopter crash litigation, says it's far too early to determine the cause of the Sevierville crash, but some helicopter tour operators have been known to be reckless to "thrill the tourists" by flying too close to trees or waterfalls or by dangerous maneuvers.
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I agree why even slightly categorize the cause when they have no idea yet... Pilot stereotyping ticks me off...


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We were in that exact area about 7 months ago prior to the OU-TN football game. It was the same weekend that they had the Pigeon Forge Rod Run which was a sight to see. I could imagine living in the area would get tiresome due to the tourist/traffic, but the views really are beautiful.
 
The views up that way are incredible. I second the pilot stereotyping. I will definitely be curious as to what the NTSB come up with on this one..
 
SoonerAviator said:
I could imagine living in the area would get tiresome due to the tourist/traffic, but the views really are beautiful.
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That, plus the air pollution/quality is horrible. Rivals L.A. The views are only pretty when you can see through the smog.
 
Cajun_Flyer said:
That, plus the air pollution/quality is horrible. Rivals L.A. The views are only pretty when you can see through the smog.
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Smog from what? This is sad to hear. When I frequented the area for hiking 30 years ago the air quality was pretty good, except for wood fires in campgrounds. Unless car traffic from tourists has gotten much worse, I'm not sure what would be producing smog so thick it's hard to see through.

Of course, Mother Nature supplies lots of condensing moisture in that area, so the views never were that great much of the time.
 
Cajun_Flyer said:
That, plus the air pollution/quality is horrible. Rivals L.A. The views are only pretty when you can see through the smog.
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Been there many times, only living 2 1/2 hrs away by car. Have never seen any smog up there. Flew up to GKT about a year or so ago and it was clear and million. Considering all of the traffic these days up that way, it doesn't surprise me.
 
My hometown and I have ridden in that helicopter several times. Sad
 
The probable cause was just released.

The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident as follows:
  • An inflight loss of engine power due to a failure of the engine fuel pump, which resulted in a collision with trees and terrain during the subsequent autorotation. The failure of the engine fuel pump resulted from the absence of adequate grease leading to accelerated spline wear within the fuel pump.


https://www.ntsb.gov/about/employment/_layouts/ntsb.aviation/brief.aspx?ev_id=20160404X74644&key=1
 
FORANE said:
Do we have to grease the mechanical fuel pumps on O-3xx lycomings? How often is this recommended? How is it done? I havent seen a zerk fitting on the fuel pump.
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When the pump is mounted the splines are lubed. There is not a grease fitting. It’s a different operating environment than in your piston.
 
oregonboy109 said:
Pretty boring life they've got since I assume they've also ruled out boats, cars and motorcycles as too dangerous because I'm sure they're basing their assessments on facts and statistics rather than hysteria and overblown new coverage...
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Sadly it's just the way things are, and not just in aviation. There are a couple of duck boats that sink, the operators supposedly told the passengers not to put on life jackets in one of them, but now duck boats are unsafe and should be banned. People are always looking to make a buck. Can you imagine losing your family and the first thing you want to do, the same day, is get on the news and talk about it?

When trying to justify that duck boats are dangerous so they could have a better story, USA Today included accidents where one hit a motorcyclist on a road, two hit people walking, one where they collided with a bus, etc. In fact, almost all of their accidents were caused by bad driving, nothing to do with the machine. Time to ban them though.
 
MarcoDA40 said:
Someones comment:

"My condolences to the families involved.

I have two life rules: Never get in a helicopter. Never get in a small plane."
Click to expand...

Bet that person is way over weight and eats junk all day, yeah worry about helicopters when you're about to have a MI or stroke....
 
Interesting. The last overhaul on that fuel pump was 8 years and 1078 hrs ago. I would have thought that these tour helicopters put on more than 134 hrs/year. Of course, that fuel-pump may have sat on a shelf most of the 8 years and was just installed recently.

This is not the first air-tour and medevac helicopter accident where the NTSB is harping on crash resistant fuel systems. The last one I remember involved an EC130, this one was a 206. I expect that the NTSB will start a push to make 14 CFR 27.952 compliant (or equivalent) fuel systems mandatory for those kinds of commercial operations.
 
FORANE said:
Do we have to grease the mechanical fuel pumps on O-3xx lycomings? How often is this recommended? How is it done? I havent seen a zerk fitting on the fuel pump
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Item 5 push rod pushes on lever of fuel pump, engine oil lubricates.
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weilke said:
Interesting. The last overhaul on that fuel pump was 8 years and 1078 hrs ago. I would have thought that these tour helicopters put on more than 134 hrs/year. Of course, that fuel-pump may have sat on a shelf most of the 8 years and was just installed recently.

This is not the first air-tour and medevac helicopter accident where the NTSB is harping on crash resistant fuel systems. The last one I remember involved an EC130, this one was a 206. I expect that the NTSB will start a push to make 14 CFR 27.952 compliant (or equivalent) fuel systems mandatory for those kinds of commercial operations.
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Might not even be the same engine in that airframe 8 years ago. Could be an overhauled engine that come from somewhere else (MEDEVAC) and installed recently.
 
Velocity173 said:
Might not even be the same engine in that airframe 8 years ago. Could be an overhauled engine that come from somewhere else (MEDEVAC) and installed recently.
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So that's where helicopters go when they are even too old for mercy flight?
 
weilke said:
I expect that the NTSB will start a push to make 14 CFR 27.952 compliant (or equivalent) fuel systems mandatory for those kinds of commercial operations.
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From the way it sounded, the pilot and another passenger would have likely survived the impact, had they not have been exposed to the post crash fire. I’d say mandatory crash resistant fuel systems would be a big plus.

Velocity173 said:
Might not even be the same engine in that airframe 8 years ago.
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From what my buddy said, the engine had recently been replaced in this helicopter and that was a year or two prior to the accident, although he didn’t go into much detail. Could’ve been some type of OH for all I know. He went to MedEvac about 6 months before this happened.
 
Ryanb said:
Been there many times, only living 2 1/2 hrs away by car. Have never seen any smog up there. Flew up to GKT about a year or so ago and it was clear and million. Considering all of the traffic these days up that way, it doesn't surprise me.
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Same here, been there many times and never saw smog. As recently as last year.
 
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