Helicopter Crash Report

[FOX Franks]

My ex is a mechanical engineer. Amongst many career tangents she was both an aerospace designer & a crash investigator (mostly rail crashes to be fair, including Potters Bar but also a few air crashes) When she was promoted to head of quality control at her firm she was supposed to be helicoptered to a meeting. She flat out refused & drove herself instead.
When I asked why she just said all helicopters are death traps in an engineering sense & she'd never fly in one. This is a woman who conducted field stress tests hanging off a wire from Clifton suspension bridge on a windy day. Physical fear wasn't a thing for her.

Also, a bloke who used to drink in my pub was an ex helicopter pilot. He'd gone back to flying light aircraft as according to him helicopters are "the preferred method of suicide for rich people"

The ex was of the firm opinion (& plenty of other engineers agreed) that helicopters are a lot less safe than the industry lets on & history is full of cases where details of crashes have been covered up. Apparently they operate right on the edge of component tolerance much more than regular aircraft do.

The consensus among these people is that because the very rich love them as they're a massive status symbol nobody wants to stop selling them.

Is this for commercially available helicopters only or does the same apply to, say, Chinooks?

 

[FOX Franks]

My ex is a mechanical engineer. Amongst many career tangents she was both an aerospace designer & a crash investigator (mostly rail crashes to be fair, including Potters Bar but also a few air crashes) When she was promoted to head of quality control at her firm she was supposed to be helicoptered to a meeting. She flat out refused & drove herself instead.
When I asked why she just said all helicopters are death traps in an engineering sense & she'd never fly in one. This is a woman who conducted field stress tests hanging off a wire from Clifton suspension bridge on a windy day. Physical fear wasn't a thing for her.

Also, a bloke who used to drink in my pub was an ex helicopter pilot. He'd gone back to flying light aircraft as according to him helicopters are "the preferred method of suicide for rich people"

The ex was of the firm opinion (& plenty of other engineers agreed) that helicopters are a lot less safe than the industry lets on & history is full of cases where details of crashes have been covered up. Apparently they operate right on the edge of component tolerance much more than regular aircraft do.

The consensus among these people is that because the very rich love them as they're a massive status symbol nobody wants to stop selling them.

Ps, that is some job. Aren’t people incredible?

 

[Rock Fox]

We frequently made use of helicopters when I worked in mineral exploration. In remote environments and challenging terrain, they were the only practical method for certain geophysical surveys and for transport of drill equipment and personnel to site. I loved my job and helicopter flights to remote areas were certainly part of the adventure – however - no trip passed without hearing of another helicopter crash horror story.
During my 30 odd years experience, we and our partners never experienced a fatal helicopter crash, although we had two ‘copters catch fire (they were still on the ground and fortunately in both cases, the pilots escaped unhurt. Tragically, our former chairman and his fellow travelers were not so lucky.

 

[H T B]

We frequently made use of helicopters when I worked in mineral exploration. In remote environments and challenging terrain, they were the only practical method for certain geophysical surveys and for transport of drill equipment and personnel to site. I loved my job and helicopter flights to remote areas were certainly part of the adventure – however - no trip passed without hearing of another helicopter crash horror story.
During my 30 odd years experience, we and our partners never experienced a fatal helicopter crash, although we had two ‘copters catch fire (they were still on the ground and fortunately in both cases, the pilots escaped unhurt. Tragically, our former chairman and his fellow travelers were not so lucky.

Jeez, I thought you was speaking from beyond the grave then, thanks for clearing that up

 

[give_us_a_wave]

Is this for commercially available helicopters only or does the same apply to, say, Chinooks?

I think the point was that any helicopter is essentially less safe than the fixed wing alternative. I suppose the nearest thing to a Chinook for comparison would be a Hercules (before they retired them) I guess the difference is that you don't get the choice with military aircraft. You get on the one you're ordered to get on & thats that.

 

[give_us_a_wave]

Ps, that is some job. Aren’t people incredible?

Yep. Some are. Challenging though. Hard to get away with any bullshit in that relationship. Brain the size of a planet she had.

 

[Graz]

I did one of these tourist helicopter tours of the Grand Canyon and the Vegas strip a few years ago. I'm absolutely terrified of heights; for some reason I'm fine in a plane, but the idea of a helicopter scared me a lot more.

Taking something like Rescue Remedy in advance for a few days (plus being very drunk the night before and only having 2 hour sleep, at most) seemed to help calm my nerves...

Which is just as well - because a couple of hours into the trip, after landing in the Grand Canyon for a picnic breakfast, our pilot told us "I've got some warning lights here on the dash and I don't know what they're telling me..." and we had to go land in an airport (which was more like a motorway service station) in the Arizona desert. After a couple of hours of us boiling & hungover in 40 degree heat while they tried to fix the helicopter, we were told we could get back on board... Only to get maybe 20-30 feet in the air before the pilot told us the warning lights were back and we needed to land again.

They then decided there was no way they were getting that helicopter back in the air, so the company flew a different helicopter out to come and get us and finish the trip.

When I look back now, I'm amazed how calm I stayed and that I got back on - but I don't think I would now. And especially after learning more about what caused this crash, or reading some of the comments in this thread...

 

[Robin127]

I did one of these tourist helicopter tours of the Grand Canyon and the Vegas strip a few years ago. I'm absolutely terrified of heights; for some reason I'm fine in a plane, but the idea of a helicopter scared me a lot more.

Taking something like Rescue Remedy in advance for a few days (plus being very drunk the night before and only having 2 hour sleep, at most) seemed to help calm my nerves...

Which is just as well - because a couple of hours into the trip, after landing in the Grand Canyon for a picnic breakfast, our pilot told us "I've got some warning lights here on the dash and I don't know what they're telling me..." and we had to go land in an airport (which was more like a motorway service station) in the Arizona desert. After a couple of hours of us boiling & hungover in 40 degree heat while they tried to fix the helicopter, we were told we could get back on board... Only to get maybe 20-30 feet in the air before the pilot told us the warning lights were back and we needed to land again.

They then decided there was no way they were getting that helicopter back in the air, so the company flew a different helicopter out to come and get us and finish the trip.

When I look back now, I'm amazed how calm I stayed and that I got back on - but I don't think I would now. And especially after learning more about what caused this crash, or reading some of the comments in this thread...

I'm surprised you didn't get a call from a lawyer to find out if you wanted to sue the company for "emotional distress." It's the done thing here.

 

[Fox Fan]

I did one of these tourist helicopter tours of the Grand Canyon and the Vegas strip a few years ago. I'm absolutely terrified of heights; for some reason I'm fine in a plane, but the idea of a helicopter scared me a lot more.

Taking something like Rescue Remedy in advance for a few days (plus being very drunk the night before and only having 2 hour sleep, at most) seemed to help calm my nerves...

Which is just as well - because a couple of hours into the trip, after landing in the Grand Canyon for a picnic breakfast, our pilot told us "I've got some warning lights here on the dash and I don't know what they're telling me..." and we had to go land in an airport (which was more like a motorway service station) in the Arizona desert. After a couple of hours of us boiling & hungover in 40 degree heat while they tried to fix the helicopter, we were told we could get back on board... Only to get maybe 20-30 feet in the air before the pilot told us the warning lights were back and we needed to land again.

They then decided there was no way they were getting that helicopter back in the air, so the company flew a different helicopter out to come and get us and finish the trip.

When I look back now, I'm amazed how calm I stayed and that I got back on - but I don't think I would now. And especially after learning more about what caused this crash, or reading some of the comments in this thread...

I did that tour and I reckon I stopped at the same place as you.

No helicopter warning lights on mine, but there was a helicopter crash a couple of weeks later exactly where we had been in the Canyon. The folks survived the initial impact, but couldn't be rescued in time.

Think that'll probably be the last helicopter ride for me.

 

[Rock Fox]

I did one of these tourist helicopter tours of the Grand Canyon and the Vegas strip a few years ago. I'm absolutely terrified of heights; for some reason I'm fine in a plane, but the idea of a helicopter scared me a lot more.

I was in Zimbabwe a few years back and we were driving to the airfield to take a helicopter flight to a project site where the dirt road access had been cut off by swollen flood waters. The conversation inevitably turned to previous copter accidents. One of the passengers noted cheerfully that we were more likely to die in a road accident on the way to the airfield than in the chopper. I guess there are no zero-risk options in life.