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On this week’s episode of AvTalk, we discuss what’s known so far about the crash of a Bell 206 in the Hudson River last week. We also break down the sequence of events after the crash that led to the FAA issuing an emergency grounding order for the helicopter operator.
Also this week, more tariff impacts as China reportedly tells its airlines to stop taking delivery of Boeing aircraft, while airlines are getting creative with ways to get around the tariffs. Ian geeks out over Airbus’ performance improvement package for the A330neo that increases the aircraft’s efficiency at low speeds. And Air New Zealand just can’t catch a break as it continues to struggle with engine issues on its A320neo and 787 aircraft.
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One Response
I’ve been thinking more about this accident after seeing the real-time video.
I have over 3000 hrs flying the 206 (earlier model (low skid OH-58) and seems to me the only way the transmission, hub-assembly and blades depart the aircraft at once is because a blade struck the tail. So why would a blade strike the tail in normal cruise flight?
Rapid pull up to avoid a bird coming through the windscreen is a possibility. (not the only one) . . . but I had a similar incident flying recce in Germany in NATO … low light, looking into late afternoon dim overcast sunlight and suddenly saw wires at knee height in my windscreen, I did an instinctive cyclic/collective “panic pull-up” to avoid them, and I heard and felt a “clunk”. … though the controls in my hands. (Only much later I realized I may have induced a “Mast Bump” incident.)
I missed the wires and no damage to the aircraft when we landed . . . but I always wondered if the sound I heard was the skids bouncing off the first wire or just the controls hitting their max deflection stops.
We’ll have to wait and see what the investigation determines, but I can picture seeing a seagull in the middle of my windscreen at 100 kts and instinctively doing some “panic pull-up” or dive causing my retreating blade to “flex-dive” into the tail boom. The resulting centrifugal force asymmetry and energy transfer through the hub-assembly to the mast and into the transmission mounts would be huge. The real-time accident video sequence, timing and the tear points on the fuselage mounts will tell the investigators a LOT!