A helicopter installing a Christmas tree on Auckland's waterfront on Wednesday morning crashes in dramatic fashion, incredibly the pilot escapes serious injury. (photoblog.msnbc.msn.com) More...
Yeah, incredibly unsafe area to operate a helicopter in. Reminds me of the stories my dad used to tell of being in a rescue chopper getting climbers off the cliffs in Kings Canyon N.P. back in the early 60's. Very scary to operate so close to a solid object.
I watched the video on CNN and was amazed that no one was seriously hurt or killed. Key question was why was such a risky maneuver attempted with so many things around (crane, building, wires, etc.)?
the video i saw, it looked like he wasnt that far above the ground, and when he went down, one of those cables kinda slowed him up, so he hit pretty hard, but not hard enough to kill him.
I think my first conclusion was in error in terms of what the video most saw with appears to be a tower and buildings in the background. I found a different camera video angle that shows the clearance. He must have hit some guy wires to the tower and there was what appears to be plenty of room. http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/helicopter-crash-pilot-like-dream-4564078/video?vid=4565912
Forgive me for being off-topic; there are some great, great photos of Fokker DR-1s in the photo gallery this week. I think I'm not mistaken in saying von Richtoven said they "climb like monkies."
They showed a close up of this footage on the news the other night. If you view it in full screen, in the instant before contact, you can see the guy directly under the helicopter pull the running cable taut which moves it into the path of the main rotor.
I believe the cable was caught on a skid and the guy below was trying to clear it. I live in NZ and its been shown here a million times although not comments from the CAA as yet. The guy under all the action was a very lucky boy!!
I'm very, very surprised that this pilot was so willing to fly in such close proximity to free-wheeling steel cables, let alone any form of possible rotor intrusion. That the guy on the ground attempted to pull that cable away immediately prior to the crash indicated [to me] what appeared to be an unnecessarily dangerous flying maneuver with not too much apparent consideration for safety. Was it not possible for the pilot to position the helicopter higher in order to avoid these mad risks that growing numbers of helicopter pilots seem so willing to take, especially if there's a watching crowd!
Hope he loses his licence permanently. Also hope the insurance class it as negligence and refuse to pay out. Will teach the owner to not use incompetent pilots who endanger other people.
It would appear many safety parameters were breached on this project. The obvious being the location with associated obstructions as well as the pilot does not appear to be wearing a helmet or shoulder harness. He appears to be almost "thrown" out of seat as helicopter rotates and self destructs.......ALL FOR A CHRISTMAS TREE.......
I have been dangling off the end of a 150' cable out of an HH-43 about 50' down inside Sabino Canyon North of Tuscon to get a hiker into a stokes. We had about 10' rotor clearance inside. Any other pilot than the one we had, I'd have stayed home. Either way, it ain't no fun.
In the Nam I used to routinely have to cut branches in a hover down lz in I corp for emergency extractions. Blades cut wood pretty good, steel cables not so good !
That's my point. I would have been worried that a fire could erupt. Spilled fuel, blade sparking on the pavement? electrical spark? I'm just wondering why someone didn't grab a fire extinguisher. Jp4 is aviation fuel I assume.
They showed this the other night on the news. If you view it in full screen, you can see the guy in black directly under the helicopter pull the running cable taut which causes the contact with the main rotor.
