Main rotor separation

I can't even imagine being the pilot and seeing your rotor, in one piece spin off in to the distance. Sad.
 
Was this during long-line work?
 
I spent a lot of time in helicopters over the years… the passengers we'd occasionally have always worried about engine failures, while those of us on the crew always knew that there were far worse things that could happen than losing our engine. Sad to hear about this.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
How often does this happen?
Click to expand...

I'd say your chance of a spar failure in a typical GA airplane would be far greater than the rotor departing a helicopter. Even then, it would be a rotor not maintained properly. So yeah, pretty rare.
 
I have been around two in a life long Aviation Career involving for the most part military...one partial, one total rotor separation, I would consider it very rare as well...One was design failure and the other at night and undetermined...looks like the mast came out of the transmission...and would suspect some ring gear failure in the transmission....
 
Not that the aircraft in question uses a "Jesus Nut" but for some aircraft, it represents a single point of failure. Not that it really matters, because there are other ways (mast bumping) to remove one's rotor from the helicopter. As the article claims, very rare for the nut to fail...I still check it on every preflight though. ;)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_nut
 
Had a tail rotor come off a whiskey model Cobra and go whizzing by in front of me. We were a single ship and the Naval Academy backseater said "Hey, where'd that come from ?" You see anybody else up here lieutenant ?
 
The predecessor to the EC 225 had a couple of main gearbox related failures in the last few years on North Sea ops, and it was thought that the cause of the problem had been identified and rectified. The EC 225 uses the same MGB. This failure has the earmarks of one previous crash, where the catastrophic failure of the gearbox also caused main rotor separation. This has to be a matter of tremendous concern to operaters and offshore workers. Norway's Statoil has grounded its EC 225 fleet.

Those workers know if the ship goes down their chances of survival aren't good.

My thoughts are with the families of those lost.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top