I work with a private chipper pilot, who said you could see the rear rotor was the issue. Seems it was disconnected from the pedals, for some reason, whether instant failure or lack of maintenance.
I refer you to my last post. There is no way of knowing if this tragic accident was attributable to poor maintenance until the AAIB say so. I am sorry to harp on about this but having seen the effects it has on engineers and their consciences when such implications are made, I know speculation can have a marked effect on those involved. I don't wish to comment further on this matter.
Yeah like all parts sometimes they simply fail. I would imagine there will be maintenance records. And as my colleague said: pre flight check would include if they are working.
@Topolino Bearings do not really just simply fail instantly, they fail because of wear, and if it is a non sealed requiring grease it can dry out and wear very quickly. If it is sealed then they fail over time because water generally gets in there, and drys them out thus they wear, wear on a bearing as most know is picked up by noise, dust debris in or around, broken seals, movement play in a shaft, and vibrations. It may have been a faulty bearing fitted that failed very quickly, but then I think the report would mention it had been recently replaced. I am confused by some parts of the report, did the bearing get really hot very quickly because lack of grease and debris in the casing, or was it heat from the fire? to cause the welding of the nut and shaft, or it seized up and spun the nut breaking the pin, but it all seems to stem back to this bearing. So I am guessing it should have been spotted through some routine maintenance etc. Hence all the safety action bulletins. Still a crying shame it happened all though and hope it never happens again.
The report suggested it was the pedals became detached, assuming the bearing let go given the above comments
Auto rotate. Think of a sycamore leaf/seed. If you suffer total power loss, and provided main and tail rotor are still connected and nothing is seized, it's a fairly routine exercise for pilots. I watched the vid the night it happened. It was fairly obvious he lost his tail rotor. In the hover, as he was, you're fairly well fooked as we witnessed. If you have good air speed (~120 knots) you may have a chance to get down. @Topolino will know. I fly all the time as a passenger in the oil and gas industry. Tuesday is my next flight (yessssss, inbound!!!). The only time I feel mildly nervous is landing on the rig. I've had hundreds of flights all over the world and no major dramas to report. In a numbers game crashes are very rare.
I think I've said enough already on this subject (as I mentioned before) but what I will finally comment on (if nothing else to avoid more speculation) is that there are lots of variables here. All the more reason to wait until a conclusive finding has been reached. Most commercial transport helicopters are fitted with a HUMS monitoring system (Heath and Usage Monitoring System) which is used to determine component anomalies within critical systems by using vibration analysis, amongst many other factors, to establish a trend and therein detect a potential failure before it occurs. The data is downloaded after every flight and is analyzed by both engineers and the software itself and either will flag up any aspect of that data, that is close to or is approaching a pre-determined threshold. An aircraft that exhibits such data, will not be released to fly again until the issue is resolved or quantified or will be placed on close monitoring for non-critical components for a pre-determined period of time and re-evaluation. I don't suppose this being a privately owned and operated aircraft, it had this facility available, as it is an incredibly expensive system to install, however even with the most diligent of practice and maintenance, which I have no doubt this airframe would have been legally subject to, no one can predict a catastrophic failure, if indeed that was what led to the accident. The final report will provide a more definitive explanation, so I see no sense in second guessing at a probable cause.
A tragic accident, indeed. Very fortunate that nobody on the ground was involved. I fail to understand why the AIB are drip feeding their findings. Why not come out and say they are certain it was not pilot error but a mechanical fault? Then leave it at that until the investigation is complete? Already they have told other operators to check the tail rotors before discovering that it is nothing to do with them. I don't think that this comes across as very professional but rather a bit panicky.
You can do. If you were to have an engine failure then providing that you have enough height, then a helicopter can 'coast' to the ground. Not in the Leicester incident because of lack of height (probably) and loss of control.
