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Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Shock and Disbelief....
We are at the Air Medical Transport Conference in Virginia Beach. Yesterday morning, right after our presentation, we were told about the crash of Hospital Wing's aircraft. We send our deepest condolences to the families of those killed, and to the entire flight team. These ladies spent their working lives taking care of others. We know God has wrapped these souls in his loving arms.
God Speed friends.
Friday, October 18, 2013
BASH, BAM, BOOM: The Bird Threat
NTSB Identification: ERA14CA009
Nonscheduled 14 CFR Part 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
Accident occurred Sunday, October 20, 2013 in Madison, MS
Probable Cause Approval Date: 12/19/2013
Aircraft: EUROCOPTER AS 350 B2, registration: N911ES
Injuries: 3 Minor.
Nonscheduled 14 CFR Part 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
Accident occurred Sunday, October 20, 2013 in Madison, MS
Probable Cause Approval Date: 12/19/2013
Aircraft: EUROCOPTER AS 350 B2, registration: N911ES
Injuries: 3 Minor.
According to the pilot, he was climbing the helicopter through 1,300 feet when he felt an "explosion" in his face that knocked his visor up and affected both his visibility and crew communications. The pilot was eventually able to get his visor back down and land the helicopter, where it was discovered that both windshields were blown out, the center post and the cabin shell were damaged, the doors were blown open and on board medical equipment was missing. On the ground, a crew member stated that just before the event, he had seen a black bird fly toward the helicopter from above and left, but did not have enough time to call it out. Analysis of onboard residual bird feathers and a photograph of the suspect bird carcass indicated that it was a black vulture, which can weigh up to 4.8 pounds.
The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident to be:
The helicopter's collision with a black vulture during a climb to cruise altitude.
BASH (Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard)
BAM (Bird Avoidance Maneuver)
BOOM (the sound of your windshield exploding in your face - keep your visor down when possible, and your guard up always.
Fly defensively!
During shift briefings, I like to question the crew members I will be flying with about proximate threats--what will kill us today? In a single-engine helicopter, engine failure comes up a lot. In fact, a bird strike is much more likely than an engine failure and can be more deadly.
 |
| Bird versus Blackhawk. |
On January 4, 2009, a Sikorsky S-76 helicopter hit a Red-tailed Hawk in Louisiana. The hawk hit the helicopter just above the windscreen. The impact forced the activation of the engine fire suppression control handles, retarding the throttles and causing the engines to lose power. Eight of the nine persons on board died in the subsequent crash; the survivor, a passenger, was seriously injured
Some aircraft have plastic windshields, some have glass. The picture above makes clear that even a glass windshield will give way for a big enough bird.
"A 12-pound Canada goose struck by a 150-mph (aircraft) ... generates the kinetic energy of a 1,000-pound weight dropped from a height of 10 feet."
(Bird Strike Committee, Boeing Aero Magazine online at http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/articles/2011_q3/4/
During my initial training with Air Methods, we were told about a pilot who took a bird through the windshield and then suffered a loss of power from both engines! He pushed the collective down and entered autorotation. As he neared the ground, muscle memory and pattern recognition led him to sweep his hand overhead from back to front to verify that his throttles were all the way forward to the "flight" position, something he had done thousands of times as part of his before-landing checks. The bird had pushed them to the idle stop. He shoved them forward and regained power for a "normal" landing. That's a story I would rather hear than tell.
One of the hallmarks of safe flight operations is the identification of bad things that might happen, and the preparation for their eventual occurrence. We use drills, rehearsals, simulators, and table-talk to get ready for all sorts of unpleasant events, but how can we prepare for a bird coming in through the front window? Perhaps someone who has lived through it might be asked to speak at a safety meeting or group event or write his or her recollection of the event for dissemination.
Several years back Dave Andrews, a HEMS pioneer, took a bird through the windshield of a BK-117 in South Carolina. This was before pilots flying EMS wore helmets, and the bird knocked off his headset before going back out through the greenhouse (the small overhead window that allows pilots to see where they are going during a turn). He couldn't communicate with the crew in the back just then, and it must have been quite an adventure for them; waiting to find out if they were going to crash. The wind and noise in the cockpit must be disorienting. Maintaining aircraft control and slowing down are probably hard with a pounding heart and a shaking hand. I have read of crews having trouble figuring out if the blood and loose parts in their faces belong to themselves or the bird.
During the day, we can see a bird coming and make a gentle avoidance maneuver. Opinions vary on how to do that. For me, a climb usually works as most birds will tuck and dive when frightened. Some birds go into attack mode and turn into our path. Bird brains!
Striking a bird at night is a scary event for a pilot and crew. I was between Douglas Georgia and Doctor Still's burn hospital in Augusta one night at three thousand feet when we hit a big bird. The BOOM was so loud it brought the patient up out of sedation and so violent it knocked the gel-coat off the nose of our BK. Thank goodness it hit right on the knuckle of the nose. If it had hit a foot above, on the windshield, it would have been inside with us. I tasted copper in my mouth for several minutes.
After that, I began to leave the landing light on during night flights. Research on the effectiveness of this technique is mixed, but for me, it works. I haven't hit a bird since I began leaving a light on. I have always flown with my visor down since I began wearing a helmet for HEMS, but now I am flying at night with NVGs, and the only thing between my eyes and whatever comes through the windshield is a set of tubes.
Here's a bit about a more recent event. This pilot and crew were not as lucky as I and my crew were, on that flight from Douglas to Augusta.
"The helicopter was found on the bank of a reservoir on its right side on a heading about 205°... A post-impact fire consumed a majority of the fuselage... All main rotor blades remained attached to the main rotor hub. All blades were fractured in multiple locations; blade remnants and blade core pieces were found surrounding the accident site... Fragments of the pilot's night vision goggles were located in the area of the pilot controls. During the on-scene portion of the investigation, numerous geese, ducks, and cranes were observed in the reservoir and at another nearby reservoir.
Most bird strikes occur at low altitudes. Flying at or above 3000 feet AGL greatly reduces the risk of a bird strike. Birds congregate around bodies of water and trash dumps; these should be marked on hazard maps and route planning should account for these risks.
During a discussion of bird strikes with HEMS-industry safety-expert Rex Alexander, he mentioned that a company he was working with analyzed data from all their bird strikes. They found that one model of helicopter they were operating had significantly fewer strikes at night than others. They investigated what it might be about this particular model contributing to this statistic.
The answer? Those machines all have white strobes.
There is at least one vendor selling a pulsing white light as a form of bird strike protection. If you don't have one of these or white strobes, consider leaving a landing light on at night. If you aim it down at 30 to 45 degrees it doesn't totally wash out the image through your NVGs. This might save your life.
Even rocket ships hit birds.
Thursday, October 3, 2013
It's All About the Pizza...
I almost had to buy pizza for my crew two nights ago. We were standing next to our aircraft around 10 PM on a cool still night, waiting for the wheels of health care to grind. As this was my crew's third patient flight for their 24-hour shift, and my first for a 12-hour night shift, our perspectives on going to work were different. I kept my mouth shut. As we waited, I glanced up at the top of my cabin and saw a push-latch sticking up, unfastened!
"Whoa! Crap! how did I do that?" I climbed up on the step and secured it. This kind of thing happens and it's worth talking about. A few years back an incorrectly fastened latch almost killed three people. I met one of them while teaching at their program.
The aircraft had not flown all day or been removed from it's hangar. During the day shift, maintenance called and asked the duty pilot to go out and check a measurement on the fuel control linkage. He did so, and reported closing the left side cowl upon completion. When the night shift arrived, the pilot completed his preflight inspection and later in the shift the crew was alerted for a flight. They opened the hangar door and pulled the aircraft outside. When the door button was pressed to close the door, nothing happened.
Safety Briefing Topic: How does your team deal with a break in the normal sequence of events?
They talked about what to do, not wanting to pick up to a hover directly in front of an open hangar, as this would blow the place up. They decided to drag the aircraft off to the side of the ramp, away from the hangar and away from the lights. They put the tug away and all completed a walk around.
The clock was ticking and they were taking too much time.
When the engines were started, a clinician in back alerted the pilot to "a clicking sound coming from over the pilot's head." The pilot asked her to step outside and check the aircraft on the right side for anything wrong.
She did, found nothing amiss, climbed back in and they departed to the small referring hospital.
When they began a descending left turn for landing a loud BANG was heard and felt through the aircraft and then a severe shaking shuddering vibration made it difficult to fly or think. Fear impacts our ability to reason. The pilot had no idea what was wrong; only that something terrible had happened. He wasn't sure about his aircraft's condition or what to do.
He didn't think that attempting an approach to a confined area was a good idea, worrying about losing his tail rotor or an engine. He pushed the mic button and proposed flying to an airport nearby for a run-on landing.
The crew both emphatically requested landing immediately. As it turned out, that was the right choice. They suffered a cowl opening in flight.
.
When there is something wrong with your aircraft, will you spot it?
Fly safely friends,
HelicopterEMS.com
(edited 9/6/16, clarity, brevity)
"Whoa! Crap! how did I do that?" I climbed up on the step and secured it. This kind of thing happens and it's worth talking about. A few years back an incorrectly fastened latch almost killed three people. I met one of them while teaching at their program.
The aircraft had not flown all day or been removed from it's hangar. During the day shift, maintenance called and asked the duty pilot to go out and check a measurement on the fuel control linkage. He did so, and reported closing the left side cowl upon completion. When the night shift arrived, the pilot completed his preflight inspection and later in the shift the crew was alerted for a flight. They opened the hangar door and pulled the aircraft outside. When the door button was pressed to close the door, nothing happened.
Safety Briefing Topic: How does your team deal with a break in the normal sequence of events?
They talked about what to do, not wanting to pick up to a hover directly in front of an open hangar, as this would blow the place up. They decided to drag the aircraft off to the side of the ramp, away from the hangar and away from the lights. They put the tug away and all completed a walk around.
The clock was ticking and they were taking too much time.
When the engines were started, a clinician in back alerted the pilot to "a clicking sound coming from over the pilot's head." The pilot asked her to step outside and check the aircraft on the right side for anything wrong.
She did, found nothing amiss, climbed back in and they departed to the small referring hospital.
When they began a descending left turn for landing a loud BANG was heard and felt through the aircraft and then a severe shaking shuddering vibration made it difficult to fly or think. Fear impacts our ability to reason. The pilot had no idea what was wrong; only that something terrible had happened. He wasn't sure about his aircraft's condition or what to do.
He didn't think that attempting an approach to a confined area was a good idea, worrying about losing his tail rotor or an engine. He pushed the mic button and proposed flying to an airport nearby for a run-on landing.
The crew both emphatically requested landing immediately. As it turned out, that was the right choice. They suffered a cowl opening in flight.
Cowlings have come open many times in HEMS, with varying degrees of damage done to aircraft. The BK-117 was notorious for this, and each time a cowl came open, another fastener was added. At last count there were seven latching or locking fasteners on a BK's side cowlings; only lacking being riveted shut to make them pilot proof.
This aircraft was an EC-145 ( A BK-117C2 ) and as there wasn't much history with cowls coming open, they only had two latches. They look like this...
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That cowl may or may not be latched - you cannot tell by looking at the plastic cover. The actual "latching" metal buckle is underneath the cover. The cover will not hold the cowling shut by itself.
As I am a human being, and subject to human factors; I ask my crew to help me ensure that, on OUR aircraft, the cowls are latched. To make sure they really look I took a technique from my friend Tim and like him, I have a standing offer to buy pizza for any crew member who finds a latch open on a helicopter that I am climbing into. It's a game with deadly serious consequences; I have bought once.
The crew is actively trying to catch me. The problem with a cowl opening is that when they fly up they get in the way of the action above.
Because the blades are turning so quickly, they are all invariably damaged by anything getting in the way.
In some cases the damage can destroy the structural integrity of one or more rotor blades and could result in loss of the aircraft and crew.
This almost happened to the crew in question, in fact the NTSB experts stated that had they attempted to continue flight to the nearby airport, at least one of the blades would have failed....
Remember that rotor blades experience a tremendous amount of flexing in flight, and the engineers do not add in any structural extra stuff. It's not really a "chopper." If you want to make yourself ill, watch the mast-head video of a BK blade in flight. Watch this after you finish flying for one day...
Over time, we tend to do our walk-around checks with the mental attitude that we are just confirming that all is well. This leads us to see what we want to see and miss what we should be looking for.
We need to look as if something is amiss. Have a critical eye.
Mind you, it's also not enough to simply look UP at the aircraft - we have to look down too. At the the landing gear, the grounding cable, the belly...the fuel cap!
People still take off today with the fuel cap open. It can happen to you too.
When there is something wrong with your aircraft, will you spot it?
Fly safely friends,
HelicopterEMS.com
(edited 9/6/16, clarity, brevity)
Saturday, September 28, 2013
Making The Case For Tiered Reimbursement....
Recently, I spent two days in Concord North Carolina with team members from MedCenter Air. If you are not familiar with this flight program, take it from me - it's a squared-away organization. The hospital supports a first-class program, with great equipment, and highly qualified and continuously trained staff. The lead pilot formerly flew the President of the United States. When Clinicians leave MedCenter Air, it's to become PAs, CRNAs, NPs, or to run programs like Duke Lifeflight. The look and feel is one of excellence.
I had time to reflect on the fact that programs like; MedCenter Air, LifeLion and Geisinger LifeFlight in Pennsylvania, Mayo-One at "the Clinic", and the Order of the Sister's of Saint Francis Aviation program headquartered at the Peoria IL airport, which all spend huge sums of money to be the best in HEMS, get the exact same pay for flying patients as does someone transporting sick people in the cheapest, least capable aircraft available, with pilots and clinicians who barely meet the minimum requirements.
I have often wondered why the government, through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services doesn't use a payment-differential scheme for Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS) for the public-good. They have done this for years with varying-payment-schemes to entice health-care providers and facilities to do their bidding,
A good discussion of CMS payments being used to influence what healthcare is available where is at...
For reasons both moral and ethical, society continues to move towards health-care provision that is more-safe, more capable, and more effective. This includes HEMS, which is a force-multiplier for the health-care industry, but which is provided at differing levels of capability while being marketed as uniformly wonderful.
To be sure, if we were to take away the 900-odd helicopters that are used on a daily basis to move patients from less capable rural health-care services to tertiary-care hospitals in major population centers, the inadequacies of our national system would manifest themselves on a large scale. As it is, HEMS operates largely "under-the-radar," even in the face of NTSB reports that highlight the fact that all HEMS companies are not equal. Most people simply don't understand the differences that mean some aircraft can only fly on nice clear days while others can fly through moderately adverse weather like rain showers and clouds. While some can transport two patients, others are restricted to one - and have to sacrifice fuel-range if that single patient is heavy. Some helicopters can transport patients supported by heavy, bulky equipment like an Intra-Aortic-Balloon-Pump, while others force crew members to literally squeeze in next to each other and make any real patient care in flight difficult if not impossible. Ironically, no matter how limited a programs capability, they all call themselves the same thing, a helicopter ambulance.
Under current reimbursement schemes, there is a moral hazard in that the financial incentive is for a helicopter ambulance company to operate the smallest, cheapest, least-capable equipment that will get a patient airborne, no matter what provisions for safety are left off. There are no single engine jets with the Delta logo on them, but single engine helicopters are the predominant choice - because turbines are both expensive and reliable.
But they do fail.
LAKE CITY, AR – The Air-Evac rescue team in Lake City walked away unharmed after a hard landing late Wednesday night.
According to Air-Evac, the rescue helicopter was on final approach to their base when they suffered an engine malfunction.
The pilot was able to set the helicopter down close to the heli-pad in what they called a hard landing.
No one was injured in the landing, but the helicopter did receive minor damage.
The crew does have a spare helicopter on scene, so no services will be disrupted.
Air-Evac says the incident is being looked into, and the damaged helicopter will be sent off for repairs.
Note: Details of this event are unconfirmed. Hard landing is an aviation euphemism for, "we crashed, tore up the aircraft, and don't want to make a big deal about it, or have YOU make a big deal about it." When the skids are spread apart and the tail boom is broken off, it's a crash. The aircraft will be covered with tarps, loaded onto a flatbed and whisked into a hangar.
Another reason that "anything goes" in the HEMS world is that the passengers, who are also patients, are usually not in a condition to ask questions about the crews or aircraft they are being shoved into. While some county EMS directors are aware of the differences between companies and the aircraft and crews they bring to the scenes, and are selective on whom they will call, the vast majority of times the call is for a "helicopter," and the nearest one gets the call.
To move HEMS towards more safe and capable operations the time has come for tiered-reimbursements, starting with CMS. It is common knowledge that as goes Medicare, so goes private insurance. Of course we have to get from where we are now to where we should be without decreasing the capabilities and resources that exist today. It is also not fair to ignore the fact that putting any helicopter into HEMS represents a huge investment and risk-undertaking. Some people operate a Bell 206L3, parked next to a single wide trailer in the middle of a corn field, because that is all they and their service-area can afford, and it's better to have something than nothing that flies.
Conversely, "OSF Aviation is located in an aeromedical operations facility, opened in Summer 2007. This structure allowed OSF HealthCare to base the life-saving services of all three entities under one roof.
Changing the rules should not create a glut of single-engine helicopters. Change must allow the extant investment to pay off, and must be reasonable and thought out (as I have alluded to in a prior blog-post)
There are two mechanisms for doing this, grandfathering or sun-setting.
Grandfathering would mean that anyone operating an aircraft as of a certain "start-date" would be exempt from any changes to reimbursement (think decrements or deductions) that might be effective after that date, for as long as that aircraft is operated in HEMS by that company. While this might reduce the resale value of a helicopter, it would allow the operator to continue under the current paradigm until the cost of putting the aircraft into service has been recouped. This might mean that change would come more slowly to the HEMS industry than is desired.
Sun-setting (as the FAA did with airline regulations decades ago) would leave things as they are initially, then gradually incentivize moving to more capable, safe, and sophisticated aircraft, and could include other factors such as medical staff who meet certain criteria. One measurement of program capability and sophistication might be "CAMTS" certification. Reimbursement should favor more capable aircraft, pilots, and crews, able to offer more service in a more safe manner to the American public.
One possible sunset scheme would be to leave things as they are for three years. Then separate transports into three tiers, tier one or "A," two or "B," and three or "C." This differentiation would apply to individual transports as with basic-life-support and advance-life-support ground-ambulance trips, based upon equipment and/or staff. A tier one trip would include a twin-engine instrument-flight-capable aircraft with full autopilot, night vision goggles, a specially trained and highly experienced pilot and medical crew, with the highest levels of available certification such as ATP for the pilot, CFRN or CFP for the medical staff, and CAMTS for the program . If all these conditions were met for a trip, tier-one reimbursement could be claimed.
Tier-three would equate to the least capable aircraft, typically with one engine, limited to flying in visual-flight conditions (fair weather), perhaps even restricted to daylight conditions (I think the FAA will soon require NVGs for night VFR HEMS flights). The pilots would have to have whatever experience the FAA, the operator, and the operator's insurance company requires and nothing more. The medical crew might be new-graduates or might have only a year or so of practical experience.
Tier-two would fall somewhere in the middle, with criteria to be hashed out by the FAA, CMS, CAMTS, and perhaps the professional organizations devoted to HEMS such as NEMSPA, ASTNA, AMPA, AAMS, and the IAFCP.
After the sunset period, reimbursements would be paid in full for tier one, with a percentage reduction for tiers two and three, phasing over successive years to reflect the gross disparity in costs associated with the different types of HEMS programs available today. The end goal is to have ALL services eventually work towards the tier-one level of service, because that will be where the money is.
And that is what our patients deserve.
Saturday, August 17, 2013
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.
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.”
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...
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...
Friday, July 12, 2013
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.
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.
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'
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
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...
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.
.
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
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.
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