Helicopter Down in East River

eman1200 said:
article says "The pilot is believed to be the only person on board when the helicopter plummetted into the water. " but it IS the media, so could easily be wrong.
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Other reports say 5 others on board so conflicting stories. We will have to wait and see.
 
Wow! I was actually down near the Brooklyn Bridge about that time. I didn't see anything though.
 
Those pop-out floats didn't do him much good.
 
weilke said:
Those pop-out floats didn't do him much good.
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Unfortunately, even though the pilot did a great job getting to the water, those type floats are not designed for any forward airspeed into the water. Plus in the water it's very top heavy and very difficult to get out of when it rolls. I don't think this will end good.
 
Bell206 said:
Unfortunately, even though the pilot did a great job getting to the water, those type floats are not designed for any forward airspeed into the water. Plus in the water it's very top heavy and very difficult to get out of when it rolls. I don't think this will end good.
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Looks like he mostly has the forward speed gone when he touched down. Can’t see in the video real well but it doesn’t look like any skid floats inflated. If they did they were pretty small and useless.
 
I heard this morning that this is the 3rd crash with fatalities by this company in 11 years. The last crash by them was in the same type helicopter a few years ago and killed 9 people.
 
Not real surprising the pilot got out and no one else. He would be familiar enough with the aircraft to know where the doors are when its upside down filling with water, and know how to get the harness off. Pax, not so much...
 
denverpilot said:
Looks like he mostly has the forward speed gone when he touched down. Can’t see in the video real well but it doesn’t look like any skid floats inflated. If they did they were pretty small and useless.
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I'm no rotor expert but I did get about 40 hours towards my commercial add-on several years ago. From watching the video it did look to be that the skid floats where inflated and the failure of one perhaps hastened the roll over? I thought the pilot did a good job with the auto/flare and it appeared he pulled pitch at an appropriate time as you could see the blades grabbing to dissipate as much energy as possible. I'm curious what @Velocity173 thinks after watching.
 
Last report I read was that a passengers bag shut off the emergency fuel switch. Is that possible and if so...how?
 
Some of us still, shudder, remember when the helicopter for WNBC went down while Jane Dornacker was doing her live traffic report....
 
jallen0 said:
Last report I read was that a passengers bag shut off the emergency fuel switch. Is that possible and if so...how?
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This ship supposedly was converted to LH PIC so it is possible that the front passenger could have possible pulled the fuel shut off, just the really thin safety wire holding it in the "normal" position.
 

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denverpilot said:
Looks like he mostly has the forward speed gone when he touched down.
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Aye, decent autorotation.
Can’t see in the video real well but it doesn’t look like any skid floats inflated.
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They were inflated
If they did they were pretty small and useless.
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As they all are

In reference to other posts - a helicopter being top heavy as previously stated and the inertia of the blades cause the rolling moment as well as normal ditching procedures if for the pilot to roll it to the pilot side.

Though, if it was converted to LH PIC as some people that I know that work there say, then it wasn't rolled purposely to the pilot side... that is all pure conjecture however so...
 
All but the pilot reported deceased now.
 
There must be a lot more than meets the eye here because I watched the video and thought:

Wondering if better pax briefing might be a game changer.
Never been in a critical time sensitive emergency like that but watching it unfold on video I am thinking with a thorough briefing, one out of 5 should be able to get to the belts and doors.

It didn't appear to unfold all that fast.

Having not taken a ditching course, I am conjecturing out of school so must be a lot more moving parts than just unlatch belts, doors, and get to the top.
I may try one of those ditching courses if they do one locally.
 
Thanks for the picture of the fuel shut-off. Wonder if that gets changed after this.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
There must be a lot more than meets the eye here because I watched the video and thought:

Wondering if better pax briefing might be a game changer.
Never been in a critical time sensitive emergency like that but watching it unfold on video I am thinking with a thorough briefing, one out of 5 should be able to get to the belts and doors.

It didn't appear to unfold all that fast.

Having not taken a ditching course, I am conjecturing out of school so must be a lot more moving parts than just unlatch belts, doors, and get to the top.
I may try one of those ditching courses if they do one locally.
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I've literally given 1000s of helicopter briefings and just due to the excitement of a ride 80% of the population couldn't remember how to get off a standard aviation style safety belt. Add in the panic of a engine failure and ditching along with the fact this was a doors off photo flight with a more complicated harness systems and....
 
jallen0 said:
Thanks for the picture of the fuel shut-off. Wonder if that gets changed after this.
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I doubt it and not from a sincerity point of view. I have no doubt the passengers were briefed to not touch anything on the dashboard, in between the pilot co/pilot (passenger) seat, etc, etc

I've had people so excited to take a picture of Mount Rushmore they've literally hit me in the face with their camera numerous time, turned off my hydraulics countless times, etc, etc I had a customer freak so bad that they slammed their hand down on top of my collective hand and grabbed my wrist causing a sudden low g situation and therefore drop followed by an even bigger panic - I turned and looked at her as we were rapidly descending and calmly said "Ma'am if you don't let go of my hand we are going to die" she looked at me, looked down at her hand, looked back at me, said "oh" and let go of my hand... ah, the joys of helicopter tours, memories that keep on giving....
 
Being the only survivor and the pilot will be emotionally challenging. Questions about pax briefs and egress procedures along with nagging questions about “did I do enough could I have done more” will always be with the pilot. It’s a terrible loss of life and while the pilot survived they will never be the same.
 
denverpilot said:
Looks like he mostly has the forward speed gone when he touched down. If they did they were pretty small and useless.
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Forward airspeed as in zero. Any forward momentum in anything but flat water (maybe) will cause aircraft roll. However, those types of floats are only designed to allow evacuation of the pax whether upright or inverted and nothing more.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
It didn't appear to unfold all that fast.
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It's quicker than it looks. Even in the controlled environment of a dunk tank when you know it's going to happen. Pure pucker factor. Add in another person blocking you and....

SixPapaCharlie said:
so must be a lot more moving parts than just unlatch belts, doors, and get to the top
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In this case all pax were harnessed to hardpoints for door-off photo shoot. If they're the same harnesses I've worked with then only way out quickly is using the attached harness knife to cut yourself free. If they had been in standard seatbelts, as the pilot was, I believe we would be discussing a better ending.
 
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jallen0 said:
Thanks for the picture of the fuel shut-off. Wonder if that gets changed after this.
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No. This has happened before. Some operators tried fabricating guards but with the collective, FCU lever, and cutoff in same area couldn't make it work. When you protect against one problem you create another and so forth.
 
Radar Contact said:
I'm no rotor expert but I did get about 40 hours towards my commercial add-on several years ago. From watching the video it did look to be that the skid floats where inflated and the failure of one perhaps hastened the roll over? I thought the pilot did a good job with the auto/flare and it appeared he pulled pitch at an appropriate time as you could see the blades grabbing to dissipate as much energy as possible. I'm curious what @Velocity173 thinks after watching.
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Watched it this morning at work just before I got off. Both the on coming pilot and I said it looked like he did a good job with the auto. Right after I said that, the ABC aviation “expert” said the same thing.

No idea about the float issue. We’ve got like 2 407s with floats and I’m not signed off on them. They’re supposed to keep the aircraft upright though, especially in calm waters like this. Years ago a B206 (tour helo) lost an engine over the Hudson and the pilot auto’d, deployed floats and it stayed upright. Everyone exited without any injuries. Possibly in this case, the right float ripped from the skid on impact???

Fuel valve on the Astar isn’t in the best location being beneath and to the left of the collective. Should never have anything near the collective let alone a pax bag. You can see the location of ours in the attached pic. Much better location at the lower front part of the panel with a red latch guard.

I feel for the pilot. Just an unfortunate chain of events. RIP.
 
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The passengers had to be cut out of the harness they had on,according to reports. May they Rest In Peace.
 
Velocity173 said:
Years ago a B206 (tour helo) lost an engine over the Hudson and the pilot auto’d, deployed floats and it stayed upright
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Astars ride different than 206s in the water especially with 6 pack Aplical floats installed (nose heavy). Add in the doors were off and no flare at the bottom probably caused water to fill the cabin and nose area assuring the rollover.

Velocity173 said:
the right float ripped from the skid on impact???
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There are pics showing float still attached but in video it looked slow to inflate.

Velocity173 said:
Fuel valve on the Astar
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FYI: there's no fuel valve similar to the 206/407 valve set up. The red-handled Astar valve is an emergency cutoff and only checked yearly by inspection schedule.

Any way you look at it a really bad deal all around.
 
wsuffa said:
Some of us still, shudder, remember when the helicopter for WNBC went down while Jane Dornacker was doing her live traffic report....
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I didn't know much about that incident so I searched her name. Surprised to read she played Nurse Murch in The Right Stuff.

Found the audio of the live broadcast:

 
What would be a good reason to change the pilot position from RH to LH on a sightseeing Helo ?
 
Velocity173 said:
To me it looks like the right front bag isn't inflated at all in the vid. Hard to tell though.
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The bag was definitely slow but it appears to have inflated.
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Oh boy, looks like the politicians are already pointing fingers and trying to "do something"
 
weilke said:
What would be a good reason to change the pilot position from RH to LH on a sightseeing Helo ?
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The change increases seating to 7 paying pax by replacing original PIC seat with a double seat. And it's not a cheap switch. I think only the OEM can still do it and it costs $250K+.
 
frfly172 said:
The passengers had to be cut out of the harness they had on,according to reports. May they Rest In Peace.
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According to the news, besides the regular seatbelts, they were wearing safety harnesses with lanyards as it was an open door photo flight. The harnesses were supposed to be an additional safety precaution. :confused:

I wonder if the preflight briefing included any instruction or practice in disconnecting.
 
Bell206 said:
The change increases seating to 7 paying pax by replacing original PIC seat with a double seat. And it's not a cheap switch. I think only the OEM can still do it and it costs $250K+.
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Ah, money is the reason....

Three up front in an A-star sounds awfully cramped, but I guess that is how they can make the prices for these rides work.
 
SkyDog58 said:
According to the news, besides the regular seatbelts, they were wearing safety harnesses with lanyards as it was an open door photo flight. The harnesses were supposed to be an additional safety precaution. :confused:

I wonder if the preflight briefing included any instruction or practice in disconnecting.
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Short of required dunk-tank training while wearing the harnesses, I dont see how given the circumstances there was any chance of a good outcome once the helo rolled. They are an additional safety precaution in the sense of not dropping passengers from a flying helicopter. In the case of a water landing or a crash with fire, they become a liability.
 
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