Terrain avoidance when the TV tower is right there?

mikea

mikea

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Plaintiffs' attorney Don Nolan said the accident would have been "totally preventable" if Air Angels had equipped the helicopter with a terrain-avoidance warning system and conducted a risk evaluation before the flight.
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http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/01/parents-of-infant-killed-in-chopper-crash-file-suit.html

AFAIK, the copter hit the guy wires on the TV tower next to chosen landing area. Just how high a resolution do they think terrain avoidance is?

Oh, and we all know that pilots just blow off any risk avoidance.

It gets me that the operation makes an effort to save teh kids life so they can get sued if soemthing goes wrong. The future Mom and Dad can just thank you the next time when they have to drive the kid the 2 hours down expressway.
 
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The TAWS in my GNS530 will let me know about antennas like this, but it won't tell me how far out the guy wires go. However, I do know that guy wires can extend out to half the height of the tower or more, so if I were flying a helo down next to a TV tower, I'd give it a real wide berth.

Here's the NTSB report. Note that they hit 50 feet from the top of a 734 AGL tower, which should have been on the charts. Also, the weather was clear and 10, and the tower was strobe-lit (at least, until their impact cut the power line to the strobes).
 
I was under the impression that the collision occurred enroute, not at the rescue site. If so there's some truth to the terrain avoidance claim since it might have indicated the presence of the tower in the vicinity. As much as I hate the way people bring suit against people and companies involved in aviationbwhen there was no real fault on their part, I think this case actually has some merit. The parents had a right to expect that the pilot wouldn't unduly risk their child's life and the flight should have been doable safely (assuming the pilot did screw up and there wasn't a malfunction that precipitated the accident).
 
Every case has merit...at first. But it may lay only in the plantiff's mind.:frown2:

Lance, I object to that blanket statement that the parent's had a reasonable expectation for their child not to be injured by the flight. My objection is mostly in the realm that no operation is risk free. And I'm not talking only of commercial aviation operations.

Alternately, consider the reasonable expectation that swift EMS would be provided in an emergency.


People, being people, screw up. That's life. I don't say that in a dismissive tone (that the parents need to 'get over it') but to say, it is entirely reasonable, based on the entire history of humans, to expect errors will occur. Sometimes those errors result in loss of life. It's tragic but that's life.

EDIT: other than the respondant would be someone else, how would it differ if there had been a malfunction instead of alleged pilot error? If the equipment failed and thereby caused or contributed to the fatal accident, the suit would then name every manufacturer of components. But still the pilot would be named.
 
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Face it guys, we are the most litigious society on the face of the earth. Trying to win the legal lottery is one of Americas favorite pastimes. We have literally millions of attorneys looking for work.

Spill your coffee? Stub your toe? Cut your pinky? All of these things can get you a piece of the pie. A train wreck, a helicopter or plane crash, these are hands down slam dunks, money is going to change hands.

Heck, an attorney back east tried to collect millions for some lost pants at a dry cleaners, do you honestly think a helicopter crash is not going to have a lawsuit connected to it?

John
 
When I was injured "at work" (I was on travel at the time), I received
dozens and dozens of postcards from the bottom-dwelling attorneys
offering to help me get what I "deserved". @(*#&$(*#&$@ lawyers. (>-{
 
So now we must FORCE terrain avoidance equipment into the equation?

What about BRS? Should ALL fixed wing commercial aviation have them?

I mean sheesh...how far do we push the safety bubble? How much do we force companies to spend before we put them out of business?
 
Let's try and keep this on topic, or the lawyers here may insist that this thread head right to the spin zone... :rolleyes:
 
It is challenging to get all towers into any TAWS database.

One suggestion that was made years ago was to require towers to
install ADS-B out in order to self-announce rather than leave
TAWS users exposed between the time a tower was built and
the database was updated.
 
Bob Noel said:
It is challenging to get all towers into any TAWS database.
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Anything over 200 AGL is supposed to be charted and in the obstruction database which TAWS uses. This one was 743 feet tall and strobe-lit on a clear night. I just don't see any obvious excuse for hitting it, with or without TAWS, and I think it's reasonable to have expected a competent pilot not to hit it.

Under the law, a negligent tort occurs when four elements are proven:
  1. There exists a duty to be careful.
  2. The accused party failed to fulfull that duty.
  3. Damage/injury occurred.
  4. The failure to exercise the required care was a proximate cause of the damage/injury.
It seems to me that based on the facts so far presented in the NTSB report cited above, it should not be hard to prove all four elements. The only question remaining is whether the defendants can show whether the pilot has some legal excuse for having failed in his duty (e.g., a mechanical problem with the helo bringing it down into the antenna, lights on the antenna being out, the antenna being mislocated on the aeronautical charts, etc).
 
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Ron Levy said:
Anything over 200 AGL is supposed to be charted and in the obstruction database which TAWS uses. This one was 743 feet tall and strobe-lit on a clear night. I just don't see any obvious excuse for hitting it, with or without TAWS, and I think it's reasonable to have expected a competent pilot not to hit it.

Under the law, a negligent tort occurs when four elements are proven:
  1. There exists a duty to be careful.
  2. The accused party failed to fulfull that duty.
  3. Damage/injury occurred.
  4. The failure to exercise the required care was a proximate cause of the damage/injury.
It seems to me that based on the facts so far presented in the NTSB report cited above, it should not be hard to prove all four elements. The only question remaining is whether the defendants can show whether the pilot has some legal excuse for having failed in his duty (e.g., a mechanical problem with the helo bringing it down into the antenna, lights on the antenna being out, the antenna being mislocated on the aeronautical charts, etc).
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All of which was the basis for my opinion on the lawsuit.

Again, I agree that some relief would be very welcome from lawsuits to recover "damages" resulting from common everyday minor mistakes or worse yet simply "being in the room" when something bad happens, but this case appears to be rather different than that.

If my (properly maintained) airplane suffered an engine failure while flying over a large forest and in the ensuing (well flown) controlled crash into the trees a passenger was injured, I'd feel that the inevitable lawsuit was unfair. But if the same passenger was injured when I crashed into a tree while buzzing a house in that same forrest a lawsuit would be justified IMO. Assuming my understanding of the accident is correct (collision with wires in cruise flight below 1000 AGL) the merits of this case are a bit below the buzzing but not by much. With just a little extra care I believe the tower could easily have been avoided.
 
Bob Noel said:
When I was injured "at work" (I was on travel at the time), I received
dozens and dozens of postcards from the bottom-dwelling attorneys
offering to help me get what I "deserved". @(*#&$(*#&$@ lawyers. (>-{
Click to expand...

Better. KNOW YOUR RIGHTS! You have a right, right there in the constitution, to get your windfall court settlement when it's your turn.

I put my Mom in a nursing home. I want to choke the guy talking every time I hear an ad telling me there must be a problem with her treatment that I could sue and get $Ms for. It's not expensive enough as it is.
 
mikea said:
AFAIK, the copter hit the guy wires on the TV tower next to chosen landing area.
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The trip was from Valley West Hospital Heliport (0LL7) in Sandwich to Children’s Memorial Hospital Heliport (40IS) in Chicago, a distance of about 47 miles. They struck a radio station tower about 18 miles northeast of the departure point.

Just how high a resolution do they think terrain avoidance is?
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ARR and DPA were reporting clear skies and good visibility. The tower had two strobes on it. I don't think they needed any terrain-avoidance warning system, looking outside should have been sufficient.

It gets me that the operation makes an effort to save teh kids life so they can get sued if soemthing goes wrong. The future Mom and Dad can just thank you the next time when they have to drive the kid the 2 hours down expressway.
Click to expand...

There's only a preliminary report available at this time. The helicopter struck a radio transmitting tower about 680' above the ground in good weather, that's a fact. What's unknown is the reason they were so low. Perhaps there was a power loss or control issues.
 
roncachamp said:
Perhaps there was a power loss or control issues.
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From the preliminary report linked above:
The airframe, flight controls, engines and drive system were inspected at an off-site facility and no evidence of a pre-impact failure or malfunction was found.
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Yes, that's preliminary and subject to change, but there it is.
 
Ron Levy said:
From the preliminary report linked above:
Yes, that's preliminary and subject to change, but there it is.
Click to expand...

You may take that to mean there was no pre-impact failure or malfunction, I take it to mean they found no evidence of a pre-impact failure or malfunction.
 
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