Air-Ambulance Company Agrees To Pay $825,000 To Settle Claims For Operating A Helicopter With "Severely Corroded" Parts

justice.gov ^ | November 20, 2020 | U.S. Attorney’s Office District of Colorado

[hecticskeptic]

You might be thinking of Air France Flight 447 that came down after leaving Rio de Janeiro for Paris back in 2009.

[blackdog]

Some are cast aluminum. In coastal climates the aluminum corrodes into a white oxide, leaving big pits.

[TalBlack]

Roughly the RPMS and nose attitude should get you by.

[blackdog]

Agreed. There is more to this story.

[GaryCrow]

There's a lot that's not being said in that article. I'm an airline pilot and what I can gather from that poorly written article is that the FAA inspector found the pitot tube to be not airworthy and notified the company of that. It appears that the company continued to fly it for a period of time after that.

When a discrepancy like that is found the aircraft is not legal to fly until it's fixed. If you fly it anyway and the FAA finds out then they WILL fine you. It's not a matter of "gee, shucks, I thought I could get a few more flights out of it", it's down and you can't fly it until it's returned to airworthiness and signed off by a FAA certified mechanic.

It sounds like they ignored the FAR's and got caught. I don't see where they have any cause to whine about it.

[hecticskeptic]

Some are cast aluminum. In coastal climates the aluminum corrodes into a white oxide, leaving big pits.
___________________
You are correct and a quick search after I posted it revealed that. I’ve just not seen aluminium used but it makes sense.

[Larry Lucido]

[VideoPaul]

Ultimately, it is the PILOT IN COMMAND who is responsible for the safe operation of the flight. Not the company that owns it. Not the company that operates it. Not the supervisor, the A&P mechanic, the PILOT. He’s at fault here. That bird should never have flown.

[blackdog]

Stainless reacts poorly in heat transfer. Aluminum is gar superior in that physical characteristic. It would take a lot of amps to power a heating element inside a block of stainless steel vs. Aluminum at 150MPH in precipitation. Stainless also likes to twist and do weird things under heat.

[blackdog]

" Alex, I'll take disgruntled former employees with an axe to grind, for $825.000."

[V_TWIN]

Having worked in aviation maintenance for 36 years I can safely say its way past wrong....way past criminal also. If maintenance records weren’t kept or kept up to date or forged people might (and probably should) go to jail.....seen it before.

[blackdog]

Actually the director of maintenance who is in charge of the 100 hour inspections is culpable. Air ambulance and charter flights dont do annuals. Such an operator submits their operating plan to the FAA when issued their carrier certificate. Its up to that carrier to do what they say in their maintenance operations. If not, the operating certificate gets revoked, and hence a settlement to protect that. Most likely fired the director as well.

[blackdog]

Look up Carson Helicopter. You’ll see what happens when you fudge the records of maintenance and flight operations. Yes, jail time.

[PLMerite]

Fine beats the heck outa this:

[Still Thinking]

I hate when that happens.

[lepton]

Unlike the myth that they just gently autorotate to the ground when they have a problem.

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Don’t they A) have to be moving forward at a substantial speed, and B) the problem has to be only with the rotation of the main blades, and not any of its other controls?

[Still Thinking]

That certainly seems to be the case.

Of course, my buddy that flies an RV9, if someone asks how far it will glide unpowered, says “All the way to the crash site!”

[JimRed]

Surprising that a pilot would fly any aircraft with those danger signals.