Kaua'i Crash Latest

Worldcrime · March 11, 2007

FOUND THIS ONLINE IN A HAWAII NEWSPAPER TODAY

Posted on: Sunday, March 11, 2007

Inflated floats may be key in crash of copter

LIHU'E, Kaua'i — National Transportation Safety Board officials were expected to complete their Princeville Airport helicopter crash site investigation today and have tentatively arranged to have the A-Star helicopter moved to a hangar at Lihu'e Airport.

Four people were killed and three seriously injured Thursday when the Heli USA tour helicopter made a mid-afternoon, clear weather crash landing on grass along the airport runway.

State Department of Transportation spokesman Scott Ishikawa said his agency has been asked to expect the helicopter to be moved today, by flatbed truck, to a secure indoor location for detailed analysis of the wreckage.

"Federal officials have asked us to arrange for hangar space at Lihu'e Airport," Ishikawa said.

In previous helicopter crashes, wreckage was deposited in a fixed-wing aircraft hangar where investigators would lay out the pieces of the wreckage in rough approximation of how they fit together on the helicopter and try to determine how the accident happened.

Pilot Joe Sulak, who was among those killed in the crash, reported by radio before the crash that he was experiencing a hydraulic failure, so the hydraulic system is expected to get careful attention. Other pilots said the A-Star alarm for a hydraulic failure is the same as for other problems, including low rotor speed, thus the condition of the engine at the time of the crash is also likely to receive critical attention.

One issue that puzzles pilots is why the wrecked helicopter's massive, yellow floats are inflated.

"Very important is whether the floats were deployed before landing or after. This may be a very important key to the puzzle," said Richard Schuman, president of O'ahu's Makani Kai Helicopters.

Schuman and others have said that landing an A-Star helicopter with a loss of hydraulic power is difficult, but is a maneuver pilots practice. Heli USA President Nigel Turner said Friday that Sulak practiced the maneuver successfully on a check ride just a week before the crash.

"The landing without hydraulics is done every day in practice. The pilot did everything he should-could have done up to the last few seconds," said Schuman, who also is a pilot.

But the addition of inflated floats during a landing would make it an exceedingly difficult process, said Mike Danko, a helicopter pilot and aviation attorney in San Mateo, Calif.

"Inflatable floats restrict your ground options. I've never heard of anyone try to land on land with inflatable floats," Danko said.

The standard method for landing a helicopter without hydraulics is what is called a run-on landing, in which the pilot brings the helicopter to the ground while still moving forward, and it can slide to a stop on its metal skids.

"One of the big advantages of the skis is the ability to do a run-on landing," Danko said. The type of inflatable floats used on the crashed helicopter would prevent a successful run-on landing, he said.

Turner said that Heli USA spent $600,000 installing floats on all its Kaua'i A-Star helicopters last year. They are designed to keep a helicopter afloat in case of a water landing.

On Sept. 23, 2005, three Heli USA passengers died when an A-Star helicopter without floats crashed into the water and quickly sank.

In a Feb. 13 press release, Heli USA addressed the issue: "Since this event, Heli USA has installed additional safety equipment including external inflatable floats on its helicopters even though they are still not required (by the FAA). ... The company has done so, so that its helicopters can fly beyond autorotative distance from shore and conduct interisland commercial operations."

Danko said such floats rarely if ever inflate as the result of impact. "I think that's really unlikely. I have never seen that happen. It's certainly possible, but really unlikely," he said.

Others have suggested that Sulak may have initially experienced difficulty over water and deployed his inflatable pontoons. Another theory is that the floats were deployed as a last-minute effort to soften an expected hard landing.

"I would keep an eye on the NTSB/FAA or on the ground witnesses to see if the floats were deployed before landing. ... The industry is waiting to see the expert's opinions," Schuman said.

posted by richard

http://heli-safety.com

Linc · March 12, 2007

Oh, to be a talking head...

AIR9ENG · March 12, 2007

another one just crashed in Kauai today

http://www.khnl.com/Global/story.asp?S=6211018

HANALEI - (KHNL) There has been another helicopter crash on Kauai. It happened just after 1 p.m. in Hanalei near the YMCA camp.

A spokesperson for the Department of Transportation says one person is in critical condition another three are being treated for injuries at the scene. A witness tells News 8 that it appears there may have been one fatality.

This is the second helicopter crash on Kauai in three days. On Thursday a Heli-Usa helicopter crashed at the Princeville aiport killing four and critically injuring three others. Stay with KHNL News 8 for the latest.

Worldcrime · March 12, 2007

Oh, to be a talking head...

HUH?

FlyNHighNFast · March 12, 2007

HUH?

Talking Head = Clueless reporter.

gmsemel · March 12, 2007

The Lesson here is that the press already wrote the story before the fact. And they are never going to let the facts of the matter interfear with the story.

Worldcrime · March 12, 2007

At heli-Expo's safety symposium 2 weeks ago the NTSB talked a lot about reccomendations to the FAA for new rules for Hawaii tour operators. I don't think new rules would have mattered much in this one.

richard

Worldcrime · March 14, 2007

TWO FATAL CRASHES IN FOUR DAYS

Initial culprit in crash is nosedive, not floats

Joe Sulak was piloting the A-Star helicopter that crashed last week at Princeville Airport. Sulak and three passengers were killed.

Mike Pena

Brian Rayner

LIHU'E, Kaua'i —Wreckage of last week's Heli USA tour helicopter crash, which killed four people, suggests the aircraft's inflatable floats did not play a role in causing the accident, an investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board said.

Instead, it appeared the helicopter took a sudden, catastrophic lurch nose-down as pilot Joe Sulak, 59, of Princeville, was conducting an emergency landing with reported hydraulic problems, said NTSB investigator Brian Rayner.

Three passengers and Sulak died and three passengers are being treated for severe injuries at The Queen's Medical Center.

"Our best estimate is that the floats deployed as a result of collision with terrain. It appears that the helicopter struck the ground, (then) the floats deployed," he said. The presence of the inflated floats under the wreckage had confused company officials and others, who suggested that if they had been inflated in flight, they could have contributed to the crash.

Rayner, who is the NTSB's lead investigator on the crash, said Sulak reported by radio to the Heli USA dispatcher at Princeville Airport that he was experiencing hydraulic problems and planned to perform a run-on landing — the accepted procedure when an A-Star helicopters' hydraulics are out. Since it is difficult to perform the fine control needed for hovering a helicopter without hydraulic assistance, the run-on landing involves a pilot bringing the helicopter to the ground with forward speed and sliding to a stop on its skids.

A single witness to the crash told investigators that the aircraft was coming in at a downward angle, but suddenly tipped forward at the last moment and crashed on its nose. During the process, there may also have been damage from the main rotor striking part of the helicopter body.

"There was some evidence of blade impact, but the most significant deformation was crush deformation," Rayner said.

He said there was no evidence of clay or grass stains on the floats, suggesting they had not been inflated when the helicopter hit the grassy shoulder of the Princeville Airport runway.

Rayner warned that the investigation is still very young and considerable data need to be gathered. Rayner said he expects to file a preliminary report in about a week. Final reports can take a year or more to complete.

LATEST COPTER CRASH

Rayner's crew and FAA officials also conducted the preliminary investigation of a second fatal helicopter crash Sunday, in which an Inter-Island Helicopters Hughes 500 lost its tail rotor while flying over Ha'ena — perhaps due to an impact with a bird or other object.

Pilot Donald Torres, 30, of Hanapepe, brought the spinning helicopter to the ground, but it clipped tree limbs and hit a fence at the last minute, and fell onto its side. One passenger was killed and three were injured. Torres suffered minor injuries and was treated and released from Wilcox Hospital.

Michael Gershon, 60, of Walnut Creek, Calif., died in the crash. The other passengers were Dania Hansen, 60, of Los Altos, Calif., who had been scheduled for surgery yesterday at Wilcox Hospital, and Douglas Barton, 60, and Judy Barton, 51, both of Newport, N.H., who were flown to The Queen's Medical Center for treatment.

Rayner said he will pass off information on the Inter-Island crash to a separate NTSB crew that arrived on Kaua'i yesterday. That crew is expected to be headed by Chicago-based investigator Jim Siliman.

In the latest crash, Rayner said witnesses interviewed by his team, FAA investigators and police said they heard two loud bangs, and saw at least two objects leave the helicopter and land in the ocean. Fire Department divers yesterday recovered helicopter parts from the waters off Ha'ena Point.

Rayner said the parts may provide some indication of why the helicopter's rear rotor and attached parts broke off the tail of the aircraft.

BIRD TO BLAME?

"The majority of the tail rotor gearbox, output shaft, control linkage and tail rotor were no longer installed on the helicopter" when he inspected it on the ground, he said. Inter-Island Helicopters vice president Ken D'Attilio suggested the helicopter might have run into a large bird that caused the damage.

It is not unusual to have bird strikes on aircraft, and Rayner said he has experienced them himself as a military helicopter pilot. But he said investigators will look for physical evidence to find the cause of the damage.

Many residents and visitors in the area looked up after hearing the bangs, and then reported hearing the helicopter engines begin roaring.

"Engine noise increased significantly — one said it was like a car with a very bad muffler, loud," Rayner said. They reported the helicopter began descending in a controlled way, but with the rotors "teetering back and forth." As it crossed over the beach and the tree line, the helicopter began spinning, and it continued rotating until it hit the trees and then the ground, he said.

The pilot's job of controlling an aircraft with a tail rotor gone is extremely tough, he said.

"It is a significant in-flight emergency. This pilot was dealing with a very, very significant emergency," he said.

Siliman's crew will begin a detailed analysis of the Inter-Island helicopter wreckage today at the crash site in Ha'ena.

FIRST WRECKAGE MOVED

The wreckage of Heli USA's A-Star was moved Sunday to a hangar at Lihu'e Airport. The wreckage of the Inter-Island helicopter is expected to be moved there as well later this week, once the crash site investigation is complete.

Rayner said neither helicopter carried equipment that would record instrument functions and neither carried cockpit voice recorders.

Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com.

from Advertiser Kaua'i Bureau