Helicopter crash in Australia last month (video)

[Archer]

I wanted to share this: http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-n ... ts-answers

The story is more about the aftermath but the video is pretty impressive, everybody walked away from what could have been a terrible accident. Cause: not yet fully determined even though it is clear what happened. The guy standing below the hovering chopper jumps and grabs the cable to unhook it from the chopper. Problem is that he pulls it taut and it hits the rotor.
Moral: leave this stuff to the professionals!

[Garry Russell]

Cheers Jelle

How things change....Auckland used to be in New Zealand

Lucky escape tbough as the break up was instant with litle height to fall

[Archer]

Oh rats... that's what you get when you just look at the moving pictures and don't read all the letters on your screen

[airboatr]

My first impression watching the video was the cable was already dangerously close to the rotor tips.. The cable loop was reshaped into a V , without much of a drop when he grabbed it, looks like a little more than two feet? It's kinda hard to see with the guy carrying the camera in the way. ( note the camera pointed away from the action as it was carried right in the line of site of the camera that was filming it )
On the other hand, I can conceive the idea the cable was a measured length , adding in the all the aspects of the operation. Such as wind, strength and streching of the cable, E T C .
The artical says the helicopter was to decend to 5m for the cable guy to reach it. that's over 16 feet. Why wasn't there some sort of lift for him so he wouldn't have had to jump. For crying out loud. I guess the tall guy who was supposed to be man on wire didn't show up!

I've lifted a lot of heavy things, Seen a lot more than that, I'm going with the cable was too short. just another example of how
general bad planning leads to a major malfunction ... And thankfully no one was seriously injured so if we poke a little fun it won't be at anyones expense.


btw - Garry
Did ya catch the name on the side of the heli? HELISIKA... Heli siiika - heli siNk 'a ...

[Garry Russell]

[Chris Sykes]

Looked like a guide wire from the right caught the rotors, but why would the heli be that low!

Wouldnt the pilot have some balme here too? Wouldnt it be the pilot's decision to use a longer cable and not have flown that low not cause such high risk of this happening?

[Garry Russell]

There is similar doubt expressed in the text

Like many incidents it's not as straight forwards as it at first seems

[cstorey]

If ever there was an accident waiting to happen it was with this ridiculous scheme . The helicopter was not close enough to the mast to enable this method of detaching the cable to be safe, and of course if it had been closer, then the danger of the rotors touching the mast would have been increased . How lucky that there was no injury