Yeah, as a matter of fact, CJ, I suspect that was telephone cable he hit... soft copper, so it may not even have done serious damage to the rotor and they may have flown the bird out of that field. But I watched incredulously and cringed as he turned his tail toward those wires. If that had been a steel cable the rotor WOULD have come apart.
@Joe and W&W... I have no further information on this incident so it's all conjecture, but one of my considerations on a landing area is patient care... How can I facilitate getting my crew safely to the patient? An example: Icy winter roads. I land in a field with sloping ground. My crew will need to negotiate ice-covered frozen ground and a three-foot high fence with stretcher and equipment to get to the trapped patient in the car. I reposition the helicopter over the fence and land on the road, fifty feet from the wreck, even though it extends my rotor beneath a line similar to the one in the video. BUT... I'm aware it's there and retrace my steps exactly to safely takeoff when crew and patient are aboard. Risky? Yes. And it can be argued I took an unnecessary risk. Talk to my crew and see how they feel about my skills.
I was cringing, I'm glad it didn't go the way I 'thought' it was going to end... As a former helo crewman, and VFD guy that set up LZs, I'd have NEVER put him there in the first place. The ONLY other way to have even possibly been safe would have been to have him land tail toward the rescue units, giving him a straight shot out (toward the camera)...
I hope this video has become training video in an awful lot of EMS/Fire and Helicopter EMS stations around the country. Seems like the guys on the ground who chose that LZ in the first place made an extremely risky decision that could have resulted in an accident a whole LOT worse.
Bird has three wheels. Lots of strong emergency responders standing around. Turn the bird 180 degrees. Seemed to be a zero to light wind; no tree limbs moving.
11 comments:
So...
What happens when something like that happens? I mean, were the people inside okay?
I have no idea.
cjh
Yeah, as a matter of fact, CJ, I suspect that was telephone cable he hit... soft copper, so it may not even have done serious damage to the rotor and they may have flown the bird out of that field. But I watched incredulously and cringed as he turned his tail toward those wires. If that had been a steel cable the rotor WOULD have come apart.
Why didn't he land in the field instead of the raod anyway? It seems the wires and trees made for a tight landing area.
I couldn't figure out how he got it into such a tight spot to begin with, much less how to get it out...
Shows I'm just an airplane driver. Glad they weren't hurt!
Wow. So amazingly quick to go from gentle takeoff to near-disaster.
Lucky, indeed - that could have been very nasty.
@Joe and W&W...
I have no further information on this incident so it's all conjecture, but one of my considerations on a landing area is patient care...
How can I facilitate getting my crew safely to the patient?
An example:
Icy winter roads. I land in a field with sloping ground. My crew will need to negotiate ice-covered frozen ground and a three-foot high fence with stretcher and equipment to get to the trapped patient in the car. I reposition the helicopter over the fence and land on the road, fifty feet from the wreck, even though it extends my rotor beneath a line similar to the one in the video.
BUT... I'm aware it's there and retrace my steps exactly to safely takeoff when crew and patient are aboard.
Risky?
Yes.
And it can be argued I took an unnecessary risk.
Talk to my crew and see how they feel about my skills.
I was cringing, I'm glad it didn't go the way I 'thought' it was going to end... As a former helo crewman, and VFD guy that set up LZs, I'd have NEVER put him there in the first place. The ONLY other way to have even possibly been safe would have been to have him land tail toward the rescue units, giving him a straight shot out (toward the camera)...
I hope this video has become training video in an awful lot of EMS/Fire and Helicopter EMS stations around the country. Seems like the guys on the ground who chose that LZ in the first place made an extremely risky decision that could have resulted in an accident a whole LOT worse.
YYC (Flight) Dispatcher
So, you raise a question for me... what happens if you hit a power line? All sorts of bad things, I'm assuming?
cjh
Steel cables would take the rotor off, Edie. Hard to fly with no rotor, ya know?
Bird has three wheels. Lots of strong emergency responders standing around. Turn the bird 180 degrees. Seemed to be a zero to light wind; no tree limbs moving.
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