Posted on 03/19/2014 6:12:37 PM PDT by PROCON
Very sad about the copter crash in Seattle the other day, with loss of life, but here is my input as a former Army/Vietnam aviator. As the eye-witness accounts said that the copter, which looked liked a Bell Ranger, or an OH-58 as I remember it, they said that as the copter lifted off of the helipad it dipped and started to rotate, which may be a sign of a tail rotor failure. If the tail rotor failed for some reason, there is no control of left/right lateral movement. The copter is then helpless and out of control, and it crashed unfortunately. The reason I even bring this up is that the same thing happened to me in Nam, we were hovering, coming in for landing on the flightline with A Troop, 1st Sqdn, 9th Cav in Songbe, when we had a tailrotor failure, and except for the skill of the pilot we crashed and lived. Just saying, this Seattle crash reminds me of the same situation.
One of my Army rotary wing friends had a crash with his Cobra some 40 years ago. I believe the circumstances were different in his accident.
I did read in the initial witness reports on yesterday’s crash that the witness thought the aircraft got hung-up on a cable on lift-off.
I agree. Loss of tail rotor effectiveness.
I have been high many times followed by a crash and blamed it on rotar failure and I have pictures that do show my a$$ in a sling.
Thanks for your service. ‘Loved flying in helicopters. Even there.
1/1 CAV AMCAL I Corps ‘68-69
Sheesh, Bro me too, we’re getting old :-) Thanks for your Service too :-)
I have read quite a few case studies on gearbox failures. Just takes one chipped tooth to begin the failure process.
I got an email from a friend who was right below the crash. He said he heard a dull “whump” sound the the nose then pointed straight down and fell landing on its side. I think KOMO Air 4 was a Ranger but not sure. If the tail rotor failed the chopper would start spinning but it didn’t do that. It just nosed over and went straight down without spinning. That’s all I’ve been told so far. It does sound like the engine had a turbine stall. Guess we’ll have to wait for the NTSB investigation to find out more.
A big OOHRAH! for fixed wings......flame on.....
You’re right, we’ll have to wait for the NTSB findings but it seems that a tailrotor failure is still a possibility, thanks Janie!
A witness they interviewed said that he saw the helo take off from the pad, was OK for a few seconds then started to spin and come down. It came down spinning over the street a bit, but then seemed to recover and regain control. It hovered over the street only for a few more seconds and lost control again, slamming down on the red car.
Here is an older study on predictive fault detections for the drivetrains and gearboxes On helicopters. It’s pretty technical and may bore some folks. It’s in pdf
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a265403.pdf
PROCON. I apologize for the last flip comment. Just seemed ya was having a flashback.
I was a wee bairn of 16 when VN ended. The thing is my granddad did WWI and my dad did Korea. They both told me to learn how to fight the fight you can win. Meaning if VN lasted until I was of age for the draft I was instructed to tell the G-men to ESAD.
Thank you for your service.
Thank GOD you are here to have made this post.
your pilot most likely pushed the cyclic forward, when tail rotors die, you have to crash at 40MPH to be going straight, or else you spin opposite the blades rotation
Scary thought either way
turbine stall?
Not too likely, that whump might have been a blade striking something, a turbine stall would make it fall slow at first, you still have rotorary motion on the blades, you can autorotate in a controlled crash straight down, but if something hit something else, like the tail catching on a electric wire and then releasing, the tail would pop up and the nose would go downdowndown with no more vertical lift available!
I WAS having a flashback, LOL, scariest moment in my life! You’re a good FReeper FRiend!
Any number of problems seem possible in that scenario, including sludge or water in the fuel line.
Could be. Could be material failure or wind gust or both. No time or altitude to gain forward airspeed and altitude to streamline out of it.
I don’t remember much but knew that the pilot, (and I wish I rememered his name to thank him again), had us spinnig at about 150 feet above the flightline and we hit down hard and broke the left skid, I was in the left seat, and as I was ripping my harnass off to exit the copter he hollered at me to exit low as the still spinning blades were a hazard, OK, I’m done having my flashback :-)
I am not an avaiator...but I heard a similar theory posited by an aviation “expert” from the Seattle area who thought it was a tail rotor issue.
He theorized that some gear box which is beneath the tail rotor on this chopper came loose....said the loss of functionality along with the missing 9 lbs of machinery would account for the description of the crash by witnesses.
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