One unbelievable Helo revovery

Chris Trott · Post by **Chris Trott** » 19 May 2007, 17:10

No, it was an intentional departure. On a ship, you take off at the crest so that the ship is falling away under you as you climb, helping to increase the distance between both helicopter and ship as much as possible in as short a time as possible. As was said before, something caught the skid and when it let go, the aircraft lurched forward towards the ship's superstructure, the pilot then hauled back on the stick to keep from hitting the ship and ended up hitting his tail rotor on the deck instead. He was lucky to get it down as fast as he did as was said before, the tail rotor was definitely totaled and was not working properly after the impact, so he didn't have much time to get down before the aircraft went totally out of control.

I'm looking to see if I can find an accident report for this. The aircraft is N480KP, reported to be owned by Eastern Atlantic Helicopters at the time. Let you know if I find anything more as the NTSB database has nothing on it.

airboatr · Post by **airboatr** » 19 May 2007, 17:38

Chris Trott wrote: I can't see the video from work .

but the first thing you say in the Post is an Emphatic NO
well Chris maybe watching it several times you might see
something different.
watch the ship rolling with the waves and the energy it transfer to the helo...when the stern pitches then drops (very quickly)
ya know my brother was a Helo grounds crewmen on a Frigate in his early days at sea
(he recently retired . Cheif Andrew Glasper USN

Perhaps I'll give my younger brother (although higher ranking)
a call.
I Salute Him! the bugger has about 4 inches on me ---- 6'4" :k:

but see what you can come up with.....

Chris Trott · Post by **Chris Trott** » 19 May 2007, 17:39

Well, I went through the US, UK, and Irish accident databases, and no reference of an accident or incident has been reported for N480KP. That's kind of interesting since there was substantial damage done to the aircraft in the accident and it's at least 8 months since the accident could have occured (PPrUNE had a thread that was started in late September of last year on this).