Medical Helicopter 3 fatal 1/20/24 - Weatherford, OK

srp_4737 said:
www.cbsnews.com

Dead geese found in flight control and debris field of medical helicopter that crashed in Oklahoma, killing 3

The National Transportation Safety Board said that the remains of a dead goose was found "embedded" in the flight control system of a helicopter that crashed in Oklahoma, killing three.
www.cbsnews.com www.cbsnews.com

"Dead geese found in flight control system"

Any way to prevent this from happening? I'm assuming medical ops don't use NVG?
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Why would you make that assumption?
 
srp_4737 said:
www.cbsnews.com

Dead geese found in flight control and debris field of medical helicopter that crashed in Oklahoma, killing 3

The National Transportation Safety Board said that the remains of a dead goose was found "embedded" in the flight control system of a helicopter that crashed in Oklahoma, killing three.
www.cbsnews.com www.cbsnews.com

"Dead geese found in flight control system"

Any way to prevent this from happening? I'm assuming medical ops don't use NVG?
Click to expand...

NVGs won't prevent bird strikes. Bird strikes are not uncommon, especially when flying at lower altitudes. Many even happen in broad daylight.
 
srp_4737 said:
My thought was cost of equipment and training - but really I was putting it out there as a question.
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It’s common for ems to use NVG. I worked for crop dusting outfits that had fixed wing and helicopter ops using NVG’s and we were very “cost” conscious. It’s an easy sell for ems. Actually fits that mission much better than ag.
 
srp_4737 said:
www.cbsnews.com

Dead geese found in flight control and debris field of medical helicopter that crashed in Oklahoma, killing 3

The National Transportation Safety Board said that the remains of a dead goose was found "embedded" in the flight control system of a helicopter that crashed in Oklahoma, killing three.
www.cbsnews.com www.cbsnews.com

"Dead geese found in flight control system"

Any way to prevent this from happening? I'm assuming medical ops don't use NVG?
Click to expand...
Yes, they use NVGs. I’ve struck maybe a half a dozen birds at night including the one below. Never saw any of them. How to prevent it? Well a bird strike windscreen and avoid flying below 3,000 ft. Easier said than done in a part 27 helicopter.

IMG_0637.jpeg
 
I was out walking late last night. I'd always assumed most birds, geese included, didn't fly at night. I was surprised when a very large gaggle of noisy geese flew overhead around 11pm. Guess it's not just owls and bats.
 
srp_4737 said:
www.cbsnews.com

Dead geese found in flight control and debris field of medical helicopter that crashed in Oklahoma, killing 3

The National Transportation Safety Board said that the remains of a dead goose was found "embedded" in the flight control system of a helicopter that crashed in Oklahoma, killing three.
www.cbsnews.com www.cbsnews.com

"Dead geese found in flight control system"

Any way to prevent this from happening? I'm assuming medical ops don't use NVG?
Click to expand...
One method is population control. Don’t know what type of goose was involved in this accident but in the DC Metro area the Canada goose is ubiquitous and a nuisance. None of the localities in my area have the political will to perform effective wildlife control. Similar problem with white tailed deer, which fortunately fly only when struck by vehicle.
 
donjohnston said:
Ask Sully what? So what insight could he provide on geese impacting the flight control system of a helicopter?
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How to prevent a birdstrike. It starts with being able to see the bird. Hard enough in the day time, damn near impossible at night, even with NODs.

If you’re lucky enough to see a big ol’ hunk of butterball co-altitude, you get to decide which way to go lickety-split. Personally I’m a nose-high goes high, bank away from the threat guy, but night ops leaves me fat dumb and happy with the big sky theory re: bird strikes.

Sometimes, mother nature kicks you square in the crotch though.
 
Lndwarrior said:
I was surprised when a very large gaggle of noisy geese flew overhead around 11pm
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They got NVG certified.

Joking aside, I doubt the geese damaged the flight controls. Some years ago a PHI S-76C suffered a bird strike right at the top of the windhield, shattering it and allowing the bird remains to hit the fire extingusher T-handles, which moved aft and pulled the throttles to idle. The pilots were startled by the impact and disoriented/blinded by the remains, faili g to notice in time that the throttles were close to idle. A coupled autopilot kept trying to increase collective to maintain airspeed, alliwing the rotor rpm to decay to an unrecoverable limit.

aerossurance.com

Safety Lessons from a Fatal Helicopter Bird Strike: Sikorsky S-76C++ N748P, 4 January 2009 - Aerossurance

We look at a fatal S-76C++ helicopter accident that highlights a range of certification, modification, crew alerting, training and emergency response lessons, and also discuss current activity on helicopter bird strike certification requirements.
aerossurance.com aerossurance.com

Something similar could've happened here.
 
AV8R_87 said:
I doubt the geese damaged the flight controls.
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They found one bird went through the servo cowl and was “embedded” in the flight control servo(s) which in turn probably caused the upset and loss of the M/R.
AV8R_87 said:
S-76C suffered a bird strike right at the top of the windhield,
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FYI: from hawk impact to ground impact was 11 seconds. Of that time the pilots only had about 6 seconds worth to figure out what happened. Unfortunately, due to the throttles being knocked back to about 75%, the MR decayed to less than 90% in the first 5 seconds which was unrecoverable at that altitude. No bird remains made into the cockpit in this accident. The impact force jarred the controls aft.
 
TCABM said:
How to prevent a birdstrike. It starts with being able to see the bird. Hard enough in the day time, damn near impossible at night, even with NODs.

If you’re lucky enough to see a big ol’ hunk of butterball co-altitude, you get to decide which way to go lickety-split. Personally I’m a nose-high goes high, bank away from the threat guy, but night ops leaves me fat dumb and happy with the big sky theory re: bird strikes.

Sometimes, mother nature kicks you square in the crotch though.
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Considering that Sully‘s plane took geese through both engines, you think that makes him the go to source of how to avoid hitting geese? In a helicopter?
 
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Kinda wonder if they had their little anti bird light retrofit. Then again, bird strikes went up with us so not totally sure of their effectiveness.

preciseflight.com

Pulselite® Technoloy & Systems - Precise Flight

The Pulselite® system from Precise Flight is designed for commercial aircraft, rotorcraft helicopters and general aviation planes
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Velocity173 said:
Kinda wonder if they had their little anti bird light retrofit. Then again, bird strikes went up with us so not totally sure of their effectiveness.

preciseflight.com

Pulselite® Technoloy & Systems - Precise Flight

The Pulselite® system from Precise Flight is designed for commercial aircraft, rotorcraft helicopters and general aviation planes
preciseflight.com preciseflight.com
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I’ve noticed that light as your helos fly over, but I wonder. Just like deer whistles, do they really do anything?
 
donjohnston said:
Considering that Sully‘s plane took geese through both engines, you think that makes him the go to source of how to avoid hitting geese? In a helicopter?
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You missed the point. The question asked was how to prevent a bird strike.

If you ask Sully, he’d say he couldn’t tell you and you’ve only got moments to execute while human factors eat into the limited time available.
 
Bill said:
I’ve noticed that light as your helos fly over, but I wonder. Just like deer whistles, do they really do anything?
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Not sure. I think the stats say a 60 % reduction in strikes but after we equipped, strikes actually went up. Still need more time to assess their effectiveness.

I won’t go into company policy but in the accident aircraft above, I wouldn’t be able to cruise at that altitude if weather permitted. Then again, I’ve hit birds at or above our company min altitudes. These kinds of strikes will continue to happen simply because of the flight profiles we fly.

Chuck Nabors…old school.

 
Velocity173 said:
Not sure. I think the stats say a 60 % reduction in strikes but after we equipped, strikes actually went up. Still need more time to assess their effectiveness.
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The latest systems the FAA is testing uses UV LEDs to deter birds. There is/was an FAA report out that used a crop duster as the test aircraft and if I recall correctly, the UV lights would chase birds out of a field where pulse lites would not. Seems birds "see" more in the UV spectrum.
 
Bell206 said:
The latest systems the FAA is testing uses UV LEDs to deter birds. There is/was an FAA report out that used a crop duster as the test aircraft and if I recall correctly, the UV lights would chase birds out of a field where pulse lites would not. Seems birds "see" more in the UV spectrum.
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Yeah a saw an article on that the other day. Interesting to see how that plays out.
 
I wish there were fewer geese. No sarcasm.
 
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