Out of Sight But Never Out of Mind - Tail-Rotor Tales

I have to admit, Colin tried to warn me.

It was early 2004, and I was undergoing Bell 222 aircraft-transition and single-pilot instrument-flight-rules (SPIFR) training with Omniflight's chief pilot near Dallas, Texas. We were shooting approaches and mixing that with some traffic-pattern work and emergency-procedures training. While taking a break from the training, Colin had me get out and walk clear of the aircraft, then head backwards until I was abeam the tail rotor. The point he wanted to make was that the tail on a 222 is much longer and lower than the tail on the BK-117 that I was familiar with. Perhaps because I was tired, and concentrating on all the mistakes I was making during training, I didn't get his message - but he tried.

A few weeks later, shortly after dark, I was flying the Deuce into Richland Hospital's helipad for our contract-opening meet-and-greet. I had two or three other pilots on board, and there was a crowd of hospital-folks on hand; up against the building.  I completed my high recon, and set up for a landing to the west on the patient drop-off pad nearest the hospital, as another aircraft occupied the primary pad.

I was very conscious of being watched as I made my approach, and tried to be as smooth and deliberate as possible in an aircraft that was still  new to me. 

Without even thinking about why, I concentrated on landing dead-center on the helipad, with my aircraft right on top of the "H."  I was completing the shutdown checks, and told the other guys they were clear to exit the aircraft. I sat there filling in the blanks on my forms when my door opened and one of the other pilots told me, "your tail is really close to a fence behind you, you need to shut it down!"  I said, "hold on, I am almost done." He said, "no Dan, it's really close!"

After shutting down, I got out and walked back to the rear of my aircraft, and my knees almost buckled. My stinger, the metal rod sticking out below the tail fin to protect the tail-rotor from a ground strike, was about 4 inches from a 3 foot high chain-link fence. I don't remember seeing the fence on the way in, and if I had drifted backwards on landing...

Mike Eastlee, a pilot working with the customer, played it off by saying, "it's no big deal, he landed on the H." But it was a big deal. I almost damaged an aircraft, and and could have hurt some people; and I was actually trying to be careful. 

So, what happened?

Well, as it turns out, what almost happened to me, has  happened to other HEMS crews,  

For example;

On July 2, 2009, about 2100 eastern daylight time, a Eurocopter AS 350 B2 helicopter, N53963, operated by Omniflight Helicopters Inc., was substantially damaged while landing at Loris Community Hospital Heliport (5SC5), Loris, South Carolina. The certificated commercial pilot and two clinicians were not injured. Night visual meteorological conditions prevailed and a company flight plan was filed for the medical positioning flight conducted under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91. The flight originated from Conway-Horry County Airport (HYW), Conway, South Carolina, at 2040.

According to the pilot, the purpose of the flight was to pick up a patient at 5SC5 for transport. The pilot initiated an approach to 5SC5, to the west, into the wind. As the helicopter approached the helipad, the clinicians were "call(ing)" clear of obstructions, such as trees and light poles. About 5 feet above the helipad, the helicopter shuttered and vibrated. The pilot continued the landing and performed an emergency engine shutdown.

A Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector subsequently interviewed the pilot and clinicians. The FAA inspector stated that although all three persons had been to the heliport before, they simply forgot about several steel poles aligned adjacent to the helipad. Just prior to landing, the tailrotor struck one of the steel poles, and the helicopter came to rest on the helipad.

Two of the four steel poles were about 2 feet high and 4 inches in diameter, and the other two were about 3 feet high and 6 inches in diameter. The poles were placed along one side of the helipad along the perimeter line that separated the helipad from a road.

According to the operator's Vice President of Clinical Services, all clinicians are trained with the pilots in Air Medical Resource Management (AMRM). Through that training, the clinicians are taught to point out obstacles and hazards to flight.

Examination of the helicopter by the FAA inspector revealed damage to the tailboom, tailrotor, tailrotor gearbox, tailrotor drive shaft, main rotor, and horizontal stabilizer.

The recorded weather at an airport approximately 15 miles northeast of the accident site, at 2058, included calm wind, clear skies, and visibility 10 miles.

The pilot had accumulated 2,587 total flight hours in rotorcraft, including 501 hours as pilot-in-command in the Eurocopter AS 350 B2 helicopters. The pilot logged 46, 19, and 2 flight hours in the previous 90, 30, and 1 days respectively.

Subsequent to the accident, the hospital removed the short steel poles adjacent to the helipad.

“The conclusion of the Pilot involved and the Company Chief Pilot was that the incident could have been averted if the landing to the landing zone had been made further into the landing zone (added: nose into a corner) as to prevent the tail rotor from impacting any obstruction in the vicinity of the edge of the landing zone. Initial and immediate action has been to indoctrinate all pilots flying into medium to small sized landing zones / heliports to position aircraft in such a manner to ensure that all components of the aircraft are clear of all hazards on the periphery and or confines/boundaries of marked landing zones/heliports rather than attempting to place the center of the aircraft at the center of the landing zone / heliport. Corporate wide reassessment of hazards at landing zones/heliports within each regions normal operating area is underway and will be added/updated as needed and posted as part of normal preflight briefings / risk assessments.”

I think the two main factors are a pilot's innate desire to be "squared away," (a human factor) and land perfectly on-center on a helipad, coupled with the fact that helicopter landing areas, or "helipads" come in so many shapes and sizes. 

Here's another example... "He maneuvered the helicopter to center it over the pad..."

There are published guidelines for how to construct a helipad, and you have to look no further than the advisory circular at...

  http://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/150_5390_2c.pdf

to learn all about what a helipad could look like, but in typical FAA fashion they have confused helicopter flight operations with commercial jet travel, and the airports they use and created a document and a set of standards that are, to put it tactfully, unwieldy. 

The last time I checked, the only time the advisory circular must be complied with is when a helipad is completed using federal funds. Otherwise, anything goes.

Now when a helipad is obviously an afterthought, it's much like landing at an accident scene, or "off-airport" in FAA-speak. I think these are actually less dangerous than those landing pads that have the look of legitimacy, and are almost correct. When landing on a road, one's senses are on high-alert, and trouble is expected. A hospital pad might be approached with a more relaxed attitude, or even complacency, because it's designed for the use of helicopters, right? 

That was the case with Richland's. It looked legit, but the fence was so close to the pad that unless one landed a 222 diagonally, with the nose tucked well into a corner it was possible to make contact between helicopter and obstruction. That lesson was not lost on me...

Part of work, or work of art. An FEC heliports design. 

As I was briefing this topic this morning, my nurse, an experienced fellow new to us from New York, commented that he would have never thought that landing to the H would present a problem. Okay, he's not a pilot, but a pilot might think the same way, 

A while back some fellow quoted a line from an interesting bit of conventional wisdom, and because of my near-miss with my tail rotor it resonated with me.  The source was posted today on JustHelicopters.com. It is line number 2, for good reason. After rotor RPM, nothing is so important as a working tail rotor for continued success. I will leave the rest for your enjoyment...

So having addressed the fact that people who have no idea about helipad design do so, and understanding that we should approach all hospital helipads as if the designer was trying to kill us; we might also say that in the case of an enclosed, or encumbered rectangle, we should land diagonally to provide the most room, nose-to-tail. That's not a hard fast rule, but it's something to consider...

During my time teaching Air Medical Resource Management for Omniflight, we had more than one tail rotor strike on or near the ground at an accident scene. And of course we tried to figure out how to stop suffering events like this; 

The pilot said that upon landing at the scene he kept the helicopter operating with him at the controls, while the medical crew attended to the patient. After loading the patient into the helicopter, the paramedic did a walk around inspection, entered the helicopter, and called out the before-takeoff-checklist, while voicing an alert to the pilot concerning overhanging trees on the port side of the helicopter. 

The pilot acknowledged, and told the crew that he intended to pick the helicopter up into a hover, slide to the right, and then perform a left pedal turn to exit the scene to the west. The pilot said that while performing a left pedal turn at a hover, a vibration occurred throughout the airframe, and he immediately set the helicopter back on the ground, facing west. 

An EMS technician on the ground who had been observing the helicopter, stated that after the patient had been loaded into the helicopter, the helicopter was lifted into about a 3-foot hover, and then began to rotate and face into the direction of the light wind, coming from the west. After the helicopter completed the rotation into the wind, the EMS technician stated that it then began to increase altitude, and as the altitude increased the tail rotor struck a small pine tree limb that stuck out about 1 to 2 feet into, and over the westbound traffic lane closest to the median. 

He said he heard the change in pitch to the sound of the helicopter's engine, and also saw the tail rotor begin a slight "wobbling." At this point the EMS technician said the helicopter was about 6 to 8 feet off the ground, and he believes that the pilot sensed that something was wrong with the helicopter, and set the helicopter down firmly on the curbside lane, facing west. An examination reveal no evidence of a preaccident mechanical failure or malfunction to the helicopter or any of its systems.

The simplest fix seemed to be asking pilots and crews to minimize manouvering while near the ground, ie. if you fly in and land safely, why not consider staying put, and when you leave, climb vertically until clear of obstacles. Every situation is different of course, but in any case moving around close to the ground is dangerous, and should be thoroughly briefed and understood by all involved - before moving... In the case above, it appears that the crew member attempted to advise the pilot of a nearby hazard, and the pilot acknowledged the advice - and then commenced to hit it. I am familiar with the event in question, and can tell you that they only had to slightly touch a small branch to remove a fist-sized chunk of the skin and core of one of  the tail rotor blades. This put the system out of balance, and the "wobbling" assembly was in the process of ripping itself off the tail fin as you might rip a beer can in half after drinking a few. 

What are we to do? Like the man said, guard your tail rotor... It's back there out of sight, but it can never be out of mind. 

All close-ground movements must be considered hazardous, and should be briefed in detail first. 

A positive "three-way" communication between pilot and observer might go something like, "guys, I need to bring my nose right and my tail left. Can you clear my tail left?"  

The response might be, "Yes sir, I can see to the left rear and your tail is clear" at which point the pilot would say, "nose right - tail left," and do it.

Conversely, we might hear,"No Dan, I cannot see to your left rear, or "you are not clear" and then we won't do that move. 

When landing, and there is any question about the size and security of the area, stopping the aircraft at a safe hover altitude, and the pilot announcing, "I want to land here, does this look okay? Can you clear my sides and rear?" will help prevent striking an obstacle. 

This may require clinicians to let the patient go for a few seconds, when one is on board, but in the scheme of things I think it's a fair trade-off...This is simple crew-coordination, and it's how we stay alive.

Safe flights...

Seeing is Believing! The Eyes Have It....

edited 1/28/15

Damn that was close!

I almost crashed a few days back. On my golf cart. I was driving up the dirt lane from our island's community dock, and as I approached the blacktop road just outside the gate I glanced left and right, and heard "HEY! HEY HEY!"  I slammed my foot onto the brake pedal and slid to a stop inches from the road; heart pounding. A man on a racing bicycle rolled by at about twenty miles per hour, giving me a dirty look. I almost took him out and it would have hurt.

This type of thing has happened to me before, and perhaps to you too. It happens because even though I glanced in the direction from which the biker was approaching, I honestly didn't see him. Not seeing is a problem, and when we don't see another aircraft approaching us in our helicopter, it can be a huge problem with disastrous results.

"On June 29, 2008, at 1547 mountain standard time, a Bell 407 emergency medical service (EMS) helicopter, N407GA, and a Bell 407 EMS helicopter, N407MJ, collided in mid air while approaching the Flagstaff Medical Center (FMC) helipad (3AZ0), Flagstaff, Arizona. Both helicopters were destroyed. N407GA's commercial pilot, flight nurse, and patient sustained fatal injuries; and N407MJ's commercial pilot, flight paramedic, flight nurse, and patient sustained fatal injuries. N407GA was operated by Air Methods Corporation, Englewood, Colorado, and registered to FMC, Flagstaff, Arizona. N407MJ was operated by Classic Helicopter Services, Page, Arizona, and registered to M&J Leisure, L.L.C., Ogden, Utah. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed, and company flight plans were filed for the 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 135 air medical flights. N407GA's flight departed Flagstaff Pulliam Airport (FLG), Flagstaff, Arizona, at 1544, and N407MJ's flight departed the Grand Canyon National Park Service South Rim helibase, Tusayan, Arizona, at 1517."

report available at http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief2.aspx?ev_id=20080715X01051&ntsbno=DEN08MA116A&akey=1

So, what's up with this not-seeing phenomenon, and how can we fix it? Well, first we need to understand some aspects of human nature.  Humans tend to be lazy, and to shortcut repetitious tasks to their easiest workable method.

Consider speech, and the human lips. Because we have "lazy lips" we have changed the term "Gunwale" or the edge of a sailing ship from the quarterdeck to the forecastle where the guns are mounted, to "Gunnel." We no longer call a ship's forecastle by that name, instead we now know it as the fo'c'sle. Likewise, the Boatswain in now the Bosun. I could go on, but you get the point. Loose lips sink ships; lazy lips have changed our vocabulary.

This tendency to laziness, coupled with  the way our body is built,  causes us problems in seeing objects to our sides.

 Do me a favor. Look straight ahead, close your left eye, and hold your left arm straight out from your body. You may want to scan your surroundings before doing this.

 Now, without moving your head (pointed straight forward), look at your left arm with your right eye. Unless you and I are very different, you will be unable to see your left arm with your right eye because the bridge of your nose and the shape of your head will block the view. Now, if while attempting to see your outstretched left arm, you open your left eye, that arm will come into view in the periphery. Turn your head slightly to the left and the arm will be in clear view. Re-close the left eye and the arm will again be blocked by the nose's bridge. So what's the point?

Because we can see objects to one side or the other with one eye, by turning our head slightly, and because we tend to be lazy and only turn our heads as much as is required to see where we are looking, we lose the physiological defense known as "binocular vision." This is what protects us from a built-in deficiency of the human eyeball; that being the area of the retina (inside back wall of the eyeball) where the optic nerve is attached. This area is also known as the "day blind spot", and is not the same as the "night blind spot, or the fovea centralis.

Under normal circumstances, when we are viewing an object "off the nose, " binocular vision compensates for the day blind spot. Indeed, if we turn our head to look at an object to the point that both eyes can see it, the day blind spot will not be a problem. But we are lazy, and we don't turn our heads. So when we "glance" to one side or the other, and the image of a hazard, like an approaching bicycle or aircraft, is focused upon the area of  a single retina unable to "see" due to the optic disc, we don't know what's coming. If the object is changing aspect due to motion, and the image moves off of the optic disc, we will see it, but if we only glance for a half-second.... boom.

It is for this reason that motorcycle groups print bumper stickers asking car drivers to "look twice, save a life." In most cases, when a car pulls out in front of an approaching motorcycle, the cars driver would state - honestly - "I never saw him coming."

For us, the answer is simple. Understand the problem and then have the discipline to correct for it. Look deliberately when scanning for approaching hazards, and turn the head so that we can see the danger zone with both eyes. Employ the eyeballs of everyone available whenever possible, to decrease the chances of a collision.

Seeing is believing.

Evidence found at chopper crash site

'The question is why they didn't see each other'

How to Avoid Running Into a Tower Without Really Trying

Just think about it.

As a self-check against the hazardous attitude known as "invulnerability," I roll memories of past mistakes around in my head from time to time, by way of keeping myself honest. When I think about tower-strikes, I remember a rainy, gooey night in the Midwest when I was the pilot-in-command of about eighty million dollars worth of MH-47. I was in the lead aircraft, recovering to a military airfield in deteriorating weather, at night, wearing night-vision-goggles.

At some point, my copilot and I decided that we should climb to a safe altitude, get a clearance to fly on instruments, and make an instrument approach to the airport; because conditions had deteriorated to the point that we could barely see the ground three hundred feet below us, and the view out the windshield looked like the inside of a bright green ping-pong ball. It's worth noting that to do this as a civilian pilot would make one subject to being violated by the FAA for breaking several rules and regulations, but we were soldiers once and dumb.

As luck would have it, no sooner had we committed to instrument flight and begun a climb, than the chip-light for our number-two engine illuminated. This was before chip-zappers or fuzz-burners came our way, so a chip light - which normally indicates a nuisance piece of metallic fuzz or a bit of conductive trash bridging the gap on the detector,  but which might indicate a pending explosive-disintegration or uncontained bursting of the turbine section - could not be cleared. So I was required by emergency procedure to secure the engine; in the clouds, while climbing. Luckily for me the engines on that aircraft were robust, and we could climb on one motor at several hundred feet a minute. As all this was transpiring, I noticed a flashing light off the nose, penetrating the clouds, visible because it was red, and goggles respond to red lights very well. In a few seconds we passed over the light, continued to climb, and in due time got a clearance and shot our approach.

This memory comes to me in the middle of the night sometimes, and makes me recoil. Because what I never even considered that night was that the flashing light I was seeing might not have been mounted on the top of the tower. If it hadn't been, I would not be writing this and you would not be reading it.

Towers have killed a lot of crews, in all sectors of the aviation industry. In one noteworthy example...

On October 15, 2008, at 2358 central daylight time, a Bell 222 helicopter, N992AA, operated by Air Angels Inc., and piloted by a commercial pilot, was destroyed when it impacted a radio station tower

and the ground in Aurora, Illinois. The tower stood 734 feet above ground level. A post crash fire ensued. The emergency medical services (EMS) transport flight was conducted under 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 135, and was en route from the Valley West Hospital Heliport (0LL7), Sandwich, Illinois, to the Children’s Memorial Hospital Heliport (40IS), Chicago, Illinois, when the accident occurred. Night visual meteorological conditions prevailed in the area of the accident site. All four occupants, including the pilot, a flight paramedic, a flight nurse, and the 14 month old patient, were fatally injured. The flight originated about 10 minutes prior to the accident....The helicopter had impacted the 734-foot tall radio station tower on its west side about 50 feet from the top of the tower

This accident occurred along a route of flight that this aircraft and this crew routinely travelled. The pilot had decades of experience flying, and should have known better. But us humans are subject to human factors, or perhaps more correctly, human failings. They were motoring along, tending to a patient, perhaps considering what to do on their next day off, when something went bump in the night. It wasn't the first time for an EMS helo...

On April 25, 2000, at 1216 eastern daylight time, an Eurocopter BK117, N428MB, operating as Bayflite-3, collided with a radio transmission tower located on the Weedon Island State Preserve in St. Petersburg, Florida. The air medical flight, Bayflite-3, was operated by Rocky Mountain Helicopters under the provisions of Title 14 CFR Part 91 positioning flight with no flight plan filed. Visual weather conditions prevailed at the time of the accident. The medical evacuation helicopter was destroyed; the commercial pilot and his passengers were fatally injured. The local flight departed Bayfront Medical Center, in St. Petersburg, Florida, at 1212, and was enroute to the Bayflite operations at St. Joseph Hospital in Tampa, Florida.

According to the operator, Bayflite-3 had completed a patient drop-off and was enroute to the Bayflite operation in Tampa, Florida. The operator also stated that the flight was flying a newly established route from the Bayfront Medical Center to St. Joseph Hospital. The new routing was in response to noise complaints from neighborhoods along the previously direct route. According to an eyewitness driving on San Martin Blvd., the helicopter was flying northeast at about 500 feet above the ground. As the eyewitness approached the radio transmission tower in the preserves, he noticed the helicopter as it collided with the radio transmission tower guy wire and the steel tower structure 480 feet above the ground. The helicopter continued several hundred feet northeast and crashed into a mangrove.

I had the chance to hear the Bayflight program director give a lecture on this crash a decade or so ago, and he described the pilot stopping by his office just prior to departing on the accident flight and mentioning that a new piece of avionics (aviation-electronics) had been installed in the aircraft. The crew was going to use it on the way home. One can imagine both the pilot and the medical crewmember sitting next to him attending to the new device, with no one looking outside as they approached the tower that killed them. This accident raised a lot of eyebrows, but didn't produce any rule changes. The 2008 crash however, did produce a new rule, which actually was nothing more than a formal statement requiring something that all pilots should do before any flight - determine how high they must fly to avoid striking something. Or, as an old fellow wrote...

Basic Flying

1.Try to stay in the middle of the air.
2.Do not go near the edges of it.

This humorous anecdote was written into law with this change to HEMS procedural requirements.

VFR Flight Planning: Prior to conducting VFR operations under these Operations Specifications, the
pilot must determine the minimum safe altitudes along the planned enroute phase of flight.
(1) The minimum safe cruise altitudes shall be determined by evaluating the terrain and obstacles
along the planned route of flight.
(2) The pilot must ensure that all terrain and obstacles along the route of flight, except for takeoff and
landing, are cleared vertically by no less than the following:
a. 300 feet for day operations
b. 500 feet for night operations
(3) Prior to each flight, the PIC must identify and document, in a manner consistent with the
operator’s general operations manual, the highest obstacle along the planned route of flight.           (4) Using the minimum safe cruise altitudes, the pilot must determine the minimum required ceiling
and visibility to conduct the planned flight by applying the weather minimum derived from the
subparagraph- e Table-1above, as appropriate to the conditions of the planned flight, and the
visibility and cloud clearance requirements of 14 CFR 91.155(a) (as applicable to the class of
airspace the planned flight will operate in) and the ground reference requirements of 14 CFR
135.207.
(5) This is an additional preflight planning requirement. Pilots may deviate from the planned
flight path as required by conditions or operational considerations. During such deviations, the
pilot is not relieved from the weather or terrain/obstruction clearance requirements of the
regulations. Re-routing, change in destination, or other changes to the planned flight that occur
while the aircraft is on the ground at an intermediate stop require evaluation of the new route in
accordance with this Operations Specification.

As I mentioned, the 2008 crash near Chicago led directly to a requirement to identify the highest obstacle along a route of flight, and  note the altitude of this obstacle, be it tower, terrain, or what-have-you. This is an example of a knee-jerk reaction by the Feds that didn't cost anything, isn't worth anything, and hasn't changed anything. Even after I look at my map, and pick out the highest obstacle along my direct path, I routinely get forced off that direct route, by weather, or air traffic control, or a change of destination, so I am once again using the old school method called see-and-avoid. Seeing is the thing.

A pilot should be familiar with the area of operations, and should KNOW about the bigger towers in the area. Indeed she should be talking about them, looking for them, and also looking for any new ones each time she flies. As common-sense and noise-abatement dictate that we fly at least a thousand feet above the ground, we are assured of clearing the vast majority of antenna's sticking up a few hundred feet.

We can and should know the location of the taller obstacles in our operating area. In unfamiliar terrain, the hand-held map is key to situational awareness, and I don't mean just a glance during preflight while noting the highest obstacle. When the medical crew is not attending to a patient, they can be a big help with the task of finding towers on the map and pointing them out.

In the helicopter business we should think about towers every step of the way. We should never assume that we are safe. .

When I am flying to an accident scene, and the destination's geographical coordinates change. The communication center relays these new numbers to me and I am forced to put my head down and re-enter the information into my GPS. So for twenty or thirty seconds I am not looking where I am flying. There is a way to handle this. I state over the intercom, "I'm inside." I expect a crewmember to state, "I'm outside."

Military aircraft hit towers too. Two friends of mine were conducting enemy-prisoner-of-war (EPW) transports upon the conclusion of the first Gulf War. The shooting was over. They began flying during the day, and absolutely expected to be finished before darkness, and were not. They had failed to bring their NVGs, and also failed to take note of the tower that they flew by several times that day, and they flew into it in the darkness. Perhaps they were lulled into a false sense of security by the relative emptiness of the desert and the fact that combat operations had ceased.

In another instance, two Warrant Officers assigned to my battalion were flying in southeast Georgia. Like me years earlier, they encountered instrument conditions while flying under visual flight rules (VFR). They talked about what to do, and had decided to climb and get a clearance when they hit a tower.

DOERUN, Ga. - A military helicopter clipped a rural Georgia television station tower and crashed Thursday morning, killing four soldiers on a training mission, officials said.

A fifth soldier aboard the MH-47 Chinook helicopter survived, said Lisa Eichhorn, a spokeswoman for Fort Rucker, Ala., home to the Army helicopter training school where the soldiers were headed.

The survivor's condition was not immediately available.

The helicopter had left Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah and went down in rural Colquitt County just after 8 a.m., said sheriff's dispatcher Becky Perry.

As it flew past a television station's 1,000-foot-tall tower, it clipped a wire, said Deborah Owens, station manager of WFXL.

Now I have had some near misses, but the lone survivor from this particular crash must be the luckiest helicopter pilot alive.  The aircraft tore itself into two pieces, and somehow, from around 1000 feet up in the air, the cockpit section descended at a rate that allowed this lucky soul to live, perhaps in a sort of psuedo-autorotation. One guy lived, a fellow sitting a few inches away died.

I think the main reason we hit towers is complacency, coupled with a lack of situational awareness. The S.A. chore is made much more difficult at night, and NVGs won't always help. Towers are sometimes illuminated with lights in the blue-green spectrum that NVGs don't respond to. So in that case, having someone looking where we are going unaided might save the day... or...the night. Towers less than 200 hundred feet tall aren't even required to be lit, and they are EVERYWHERE.

This document might be something to discuss at your next briefing,

http://www.faa.gov/pilots/safety/pilotsafetybrochures/media/towers.pdf

Next time your pilot is preparing to brief, ask him or her to print out the notices to airman for your area or state. When I do this in South Carolina, I usually find 4 to 6 pages of unlit towers listed in the 300 to 700 foot tall range, with a couple of monsters listed as well. I mention the ones above 1000 feet tall, and hold up the pages to make an impression - there are a lot of unlit towers, and when we descend for landing at a scene we are heading into the danger zone. A friend of mine in Charleston SC flew right by a tower on final approach one evening - it was undetected until it went by the window. Going slow, with every possible light on and positioned for all aboard to have a chance to see a hazard, and most importantly expecting the unexpected will increase chances for survival.

In 2004, I transferred from Savannah, Georgia to a flight program in Columbia SC. When I got there, the crews passed on a story about a PHI pilot who had flown near the WIS-TV antennas one night at about one thousand feet. He was talking about how tall the towers are (around 2000 feet up), and how it was a good thing they are so well lit.  At that instant, the one that wasn't lit passed by the side window, just outside the rotor disk. They said that after he landed, he got out and threw up.

Don't make yourself sick. Towers are everywhere.

Just think about it.




.

Tough Times for Canada's ORNGE

Ornge helicopter crash prompts safety concerns

By:Bruce Campion-SmithParliament Hill, Published on Sat Jun 22 2013

 

On Runway 06 at Moosonee airport, the Sikorsky S-76A helicopter rocked uneasily on its landing gear, its four rotor blades beating the night air.

In the cockpit of the ORNGE air ambulance was Capt. Don Filliter. At 54, he was a respected veteran of Canada’s helicopter industry. Beside him was First Officer Jacques Dupuy. In the cabin behind them were flight paramedics Dustin Dagenais and Chris Snowball.

The chopper, call sign “Lifeflight 3,” had been dispatched on a midnight trip to Attawapiskat to pick up a patient.

But their flight barely lasted a minute, ending in a fiery crash in the forest, killing all four onboard.

     

The Star spoke at length with pilots with years of experience in air ambulance operations, including several who still work at ORNGE. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because of a concern about retribution.

Pilots and critics say the roots of the May 31 accident can be traced from that patch of burned and devastated forest in northern Ontario back to ORNGE headquarters in Mississauga and the management decisions that began under the controversial reign of Dr. Chris Mazza.

“I think ORNGE is praying that it’s a pilot error accident and then they will accept no blame for this,” one pilot told the Star.

“But the question is whether the pilots were put in a situation where an accident was inevitable.”

A Star investigation has found troubling issues arising from the accident that could impact the safety and service of ORNGE’s helicopter operations, including:

Whether ORNGE had the organizational “competence” to assume responsibility for the helicopter operations just over a year ago.

An exodus of senior, experienced pilots — more than one-quarter of the workforce — that has strained training and scheduling. In the last 18 months, more than 20 disgruntled rotor-wing pilots with thousands of hours in their logbooks have left, including three who handed in their resignations this week. The turnover could impair the busy flying schedule in the summer “trauma” season.

  

The training given to Filliter. Though an experienced pilot, he had returned to air ambulance flying only in March after several years away.

The pairing of Filliter and Dupuy. Veteran pilots tell the Star this “green-on-green” scenario — a pairing of pilots relatively new to their flying positions — is at the root of the accident. Such pairings are banned in commercial aviation because of the inherent risks. In this case, Filliter was returning after a hiatus and Dupuy had less than a year’s experience.

Questions about the management of ORNGE’s helicopter operations after the service suspended night flights to remote helipads and flights in bad weather in the wake of the crash. As well, sources say that helicopters are routinely out of service because of maintenance problems or lack of staffing.

ORNGE president and chief executive officer Dr. Andrew McCallum says the two pilots involved in the accident were “highly qualified and experienced” and had received the required training.

And McCallum told the Star that he believes operating the fleet of helicopters in-house “is the most appropriate way for us to deliver the service.

“I believe that the people here are equipped and able to properly supervise and maintain an aviation service,” McCallum said.

----------------------

The troubled saga at ORNGE has cost taxpayers money. But in the wake of the Sikorsky crash, some question whether that turmoil has now cost lives. They point to the decision by ORNGE to take over the operation of its helicopter fleet, despite repeated warnings that the agency lacked the “competence” to handle the complex demands of such a move.

It was under Mazza’s tenure as chief executive officer that ORNGE decided to cut short its contract with Canadian Helicopters Ltd., which through a series of competitive bids, had operated Ontario’s rotor-wing air ambulances since 1977 without a fatal accident.

Instead, ORNGE said it would handle the operation and maintenance of its helicopter fleet and the training of its pilots starting April 1, 2012. The fatal crash came just over a year later. Today, there is growing anger among ORNGE employees who saw this as a preventable accident set in motion by the turmoil of recent years.

“ORNGE was never set up with the original mandate of operating an aircraft. We are paying for it now. They should never have been involved in aviation,” said one insider.

“You can back this up since the day they took it over and see how everything is connected to that crash.”

There were warnings voiced at Queen’s Park that ORNGE lacked the expertise to manage a fleet of sophisticated helicopters.

“It’s a very, very complex operation. Putting it simply, there’s no learner’s permit for this. It’s very, very difficult to do. We’re very good at it,” Rob Blakely, a vice-president with Canadian Helicopters, told the public accounts committee probing the ORNGE controversy last year.

It was no idle boast. Canadian Helicopters had been recognized by Sikorsky for its safety record flying the S-76.

Jacob Blum, who served in several senior roles at ORNGE until his resignation in 2008, said he voiced doubts about the decision to bring the helicopter operations in-house but says he was ignored.

“What ended up happening was a desire to become an aviation company — what I cheekily call, ‘boys with toys.’ ” Blum, a former ORNGE vice-president, told a Queen’s Park committee probing the agency last year.

“ORNGE did not have the core competencies to become an aviation company. That was better left to the third-party aviators who do this for a living day in and day out,” Blum said.

Tom Rothfels, ORNGE’s former chief operating officer, told the committee that operating complex, twin-engine choppers “is not something that you do lightly.”

“It concerned me greatly that ORNGE was about to undertake this in a very short period of time,” he said.

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Preparing for takeoff that night, ahead lay the runway at the Moosonee airport. Beyond that, blackness. And unlike nights in southern Ontario, where urban life illuminates the night, this was an all-encompassing, inky darkness.

It was the kind of darkness that has a name — the “black hole” effect where the lack of visual references creates risks for pilots.

The condition is a bigger concern on landings, when such darkness makes depth perception difficult. But it can also play havoc on takeoff when pilots must cope not only with the lack of visual references but also the sensory illusions caused by the acceleration of the aircraft as it takes to the air.

It could be so disorienting that Canadian Helicopters gave its air ambulance crews repeated practice in “black hole” arrivals and departures to drive home the risks and the skills needed to safely in such conditions.

“Unlike southern Ontario, once you leave that runway there are no lights for 80 miles,” one pilot told the Star.

On the runway, the Sikorsky’s twin engines spooled up and the chopper took to the air.

“You want keep . . . straight and level until you’ve got a good rate of climb and at least 500 feet above ground in night-time before you do any turning,” one pilot told the Star.

The helicopter climbed initially and then turned north. But in the turn, it began to descend, crashing into the trees that border the airport.

After listening to the cockpit voice recorder, investigators from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada said it didn’t appear that a mechanical problem was the cause.

While all potential causes officially remain on the table, that announcement has put the focus on the actions of the two pilots at the controls — and decisions by ORNGE management.

Though spread around the globe, Canadian helicopter pilots are a close-knit community. As word circulated that Filliter had been killed in a crash, the first reaction was disbelief. Then were there questions. That’s because all those who flew with Filliter say he was a consummate pro.

“He was a safe, competent pilot. Absolutely no one better,” said one pilot.

In the words of another, he had “good hands and feet,” perhaps the ultimate compliment to pay a helicopter pilot

Filliter flew helicopters for the Ministry of Natural Resources and flew part-time on the air ambulance fleet. Yet he had been away from the air ambulance business for several years before joining ORNGE in March as a contract pilot.

It’s the policy of some aviation companies that a captain who had been away for an extended time would have been paired with a training captain for a month or longer to ensure they are up to speed and proficient to act as a pilot-in-command.

Now some question whether Filliter had been pressed back into operations without proper training and supervision because of the staff turnover at ORNGE.

“I just can’t get my head wrapped around how this happened,” said one veteran pilot, who once flew with Filliter.

“It’s got to be something to do with the training not being done well and Don being left without the tools required to do this job,” the pilot told the Star.

“We’re getting away from those days when we call it pilot error. We’re calling it system failures and I think this is an example of system failure, that inexperienced people have been put in charge of a complex, expensive and potentially risky business.”

Canadian Helicopters had managers in charge of individual air bases across the province. Such a manager would never have paired Filliter and Dupuy together for a challenging night flight, one source said. But when ORNGE took over, they got rid of the base managers and moved to centralized scheduling run from its Mississauga headquarters.

“Yes, they both had lots of experience flying but not in this type of environment,” the source said.

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As a former flight surgeon, chief coroner of Ontario and a pilot and aircraft owner himself, McCallum well knows the desire for answers after tragic deaths.

His first counsel is patience, to avoid quick judgments.

“Everybody has a thought about what happened and why it happened and conclusions have been drawn but the fact is we don’t know,” he told the Star during an interview at ORNGE’s Mississauga headquarters.

He says that Filliter had gone through all “recurrent training and checks” after joining ORNGE. Dupuy joined last August and McCallum says he was experienced as well with thousands of hours in his logbook.

“So neither of these guys were anything but highly qualified and experienced,” McCallum said, dismissing speculation of a green-on-green scenario.

“I think describing these two individuals as green would be unfair to them entirely,” he said.

He concedes that the takeover of helicopter operations from Canadian Helicopters has been challenging.

“Certainly there have been pilots who have left. We have also recruited more pilots than have left,” McCallum said.

“I think it would only be fair to say that the transition from CHL to us wasn’t entirely happy from the perspective of a number of veteran pilots,” he said.

Despite the turnover, McCallum said he’s satisfied that the new hires are “appropriately qualified. We bring them and train them properly.”

He said he expects the safety board to look at Filliter’s training, the pairing of Filliter and Dupuy, the turnover in the pilot ranks and determine whether any of it was a factor in the accident.

“It’s frustrating because it takes a long time and people want answers. My folks desperately want to know,” he said.

 

Good Times with Good Friends...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuJVLoF3UFs&feature=endscreen&NR=1

Thanks to Colleton County Fire for the memories... This video includes several aircraft previously operated by Omniflight Helicopters prior to their acquisition by Air Methods Corp., including the former Meducare Air ship, 171M(edical) U(niversity of South Carolina)), 117 L(ife) S(tar) Savannah,  and an old-formerVanderbilt Life Flight ship, 117 VU. These BKs are going away now, to bone-yards and overseas, but they served well and long, and transported thousands and thousands of persons to definitive care. And never hurt me.

NTSB Preliminary Report, N114AE Bell 206 Manchester, Kentucky June 6th, 2013

NTSB Identification: ERA13FA273


14 CFR Part 91: General Aviation

Accident occurred Thursday, June 06, 2013 in Manchester, KY

Aircraft: BELL HELICOPTER TEXTRON 206L-1, registration: N114AE

Injuries: 3 Fatal.

This is preliminary information, subject to change, and may contain errors. Any errors in this report will be corrected when the final report has been completed. NTSB investigators either traveled in support of this investigation or conducted a significant amount of investigative work without any travel, and used data obtained from various sources to prepare this aircraft accident report.

On June 6, 2013, about 2315 eastern daylight time, a Bell 206 L-1, N114AE, was destroyed when it impacted an elementary school parking lot while on approach for landing near Manchester, Kentucky. The airline transport pilot and two medical personnel were fatally injured. The helicopter was registered to and operated by Air-Evac EMS, Inc., as Evac 109, and operated under the provisions of Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 as a repositioning flight. Night visual meteorological conditions prevailed, and a company visual flight rules flight plan was filed. The flight originated from the St. Joseph-London Heliport (5KY9), London, Kentucky about 2259.

The helicopter was on approach to the operator’s private helipad when the accident occurred. According to flight tracking software provided by the operator, the helicopter approached the base from the west, turned southeast, flew overhead the intended landing site about 1 mile, turned north, then west, then back southeast prior to the end of the recorded data. Recordings provided by the operator's Operational Control Center (OCC), located in O'Fallon, Missouri, revealed that the pilot reported arriving at the base at 2312:24. That transmission was acknowledged by the OCC at 2312:30. At 2315:02, an unidentified male voice was recorded. No other transmissions from the accident flight were captured.

Several eyewitnesses reported that the weather was clear, and stated that the helicopter was "spinning" prior to impact. One of those witnesses reported seeing the helicopter in an approximate 40-degree nose-up attitude, and shortly after no engine sound was heard. Other witnesses, who reported "dense fog" in the area at the time of the accident, stated that they only saw the helicopter just before the impact and subsequent explosion.

The helicopter came to rest inverted on a 268 degree heading, about 750 feet from the intended landing area. According to security camera recordings the helicopter erupted into a fireball immediately on impact.

The helicopter and engine were retained for further examination.

But For the Grace of God...

TALIHINA, Oklahoma - A medical helicopter that crashed shortly after taking off from the Choctaw Nation Health Care Center in Talihina on June 11, 2013 hit a light pole before impacting the ground, according to a preliminary report released by the National Transportation Safety Board.
The patient on board died in the crash and a flight nurse was seriously injured.

6/11/2013: Related Story: 1 Dead, 3 Injured In Medical Helicopter Crash In Talihina

The EagleMed helicopter was taking off from the Choctaw Indian Hospital in Talihina, en route to St. Francis Hospital in Tulsa, when the pilot lost control and crashed.

It hit the ground about 230 feet from its takeoff position.

The patient on board, 49-year-old Michael Wilson, of Bethel, was killed. A flight nurse who was in critical condition, is improving, but is still in the hospital.

Read the NTSB's Preliminary Report.

NTSB investigators came out with a preliminary report on the crash. It shows, when the helicopter landed at the hospital, "another helicopter had just landed and was occupying the single space helipad surface."

So, the pilot landed on an adjacent asphalt road.

After picking up the patient, the report shows the pilot said he "began a normal takeoff from a hover," and intended to follow the center of the road in a westbound direction.

When the helicopter was 175 feet west of the take off location, the left side of the rotor blade "impacted a 41-foot-tall metal light pole," which was located on the left side of the road.

A hospital spokesperson says there have not been any prior near misses or complaints about the pole.

A commission that evaluates medical transport services has placed the accreditation of EagleMed on hold after the crash, which is routine. The group won't make a decision on EagleMed's accreditation until reviewing the final NTSB report.

EagleMed is based in Wichita, Kansas, but operates 24 aircraft in eight states.