THE CURIOUS MYSTERY OF HELICOPTER CRASH third DRAGON EC145/BK117C2 FTC: 7 MONTHS TO SURVEY RESULTS WITHOUT
Perhaps what we already forgotten that April 25, 2009 in the evening, a young woman 20 years about to give birth to RITAL was killed in Corsica, when she was transported to the hospital at Bastia by a helicopter of the Civil Defense called Dragon 2b, manufactured by Eurocopter, she and the crew members and a Doctor of UAS to this board?
That day, about 15 hours, Justine Gressler, living in small town COSTA in the mountains of Corsica, had called the ambulance because, subject to a risk pregnancy diagnosed by Dr. CH COLOMBANI BASTIA she began to panic: the induced delivery was scheduled for April 27, two days later, but she was in severe pain and contractions become closer together.
Never mind, it was the answer: they do go by car on his own to the hospital in Bastia, where she would be taken care of!
Dr. COLOMBANI him well prohibits travel by car, but what? Bastia is one hour and a half away, and it was not part of VIP may benefit from an ambulance, let alone a helicopter.
return from his companion, out shopping in Ile Rousse, so it's starting to Bastia, Justine lying on the backseat; En route they meet a police vehicle, which supports and calls the MUG.
soon it was decided to convey to Ponte Leccia where going to wait for a helicopter of the Civil Security and having returned from a mission aboard a Doctor of EMS, Dr. Salmon.
There, Dr. Justine looks SALMON. We must act quickly, and after a pre-examination in the ambulance, Justine is hoisted aboard the helicopter, who must carry it in a few minutes to Bastia.
is where the mystery begins and apparently it will stop the investigation: - Thirty seconds later, the first anomaly, the device loses speed and altitude: it descends to 1684 feet and its speed drops to 84 then 60 knots, this phase of flight takes a minute. The pilot changed course, he headed to Cape 90 °. - A minute later, nothing will: the speed is still falling at 21 knots and 15 knots, while the camera goes back to 2584 feet, and is now heading to 205, right at the cliff. That the crash.
During these few short minutes, there was no radio contact. The aircraft flies "on sight" not "instruments", and if something happened on board, maybe this figure does on data recorded by the card Silicon Drive on board.
The problem is that this card immediately seized by the Research Service of the Gendarmerie Air Transport (SRGTA) of PARIS CDG is readable with software ... provided by Eurocopter, the Franco-German manufacturer (and Sino-Japanese) of the device. Which failed to exploit the results of the transferred data on hard disk, although the card is intact and uncorrupted data ..
In emergency, the prosecution of BASTIA ordered the transfer of the wreck to the test center Boosters SACLAY (CEPR) and June 16, 2009, the Magistrate, Mrs. TALLONE, before which the victims' families themselves as civil parties against X for manslaughter, "says the review of the device at CEPR, in cooperation with the BEAD-air (which both depend on the Ministry of Defence). Which will make the October 2, 2009, a "report" finding a complete absence of anomalies of the aircraft at the time of the accident.
October 8, 2009, Ms. TALLONE officially receives the lawyer for the family of Justine, shoot me, Bar TOULON (Justin's parents are from La Crau), an application to act: it is applied for forensics, with independent civilian experts, drawn from one of the lists of sworn experts.
Judge has one month to accept or reject this request, by reasoned order. However, no response.
The President of the Board of Education, Appellate Court, was then seized of the request. Meanwhile a new application is filed with the Judge, for the same purpose. This request is received 13 November 2009, but this time it is said, is a refusal.
The "expertise" led by the CEPR is it seems very clear, and there is no need to look any further. So
needed some reminders. The helicopter
"Dragon 2 b" Civil Security is renamed BK1172C EC145. He is the heir to the version BK117A1, the first certification was in 1999. Since then, numerous reports have been published warning about reliability of this device, including "emergency airworthiness directives (EAD) and "alert service bulletins" including on the MBB BK117C2 65A 003), without the recommended changes have been made, so that in 2006 pilots of the Civil Defense went on strike after that A second fatal accident occurred in France after the first of 2003 and other, older, USA (April 1997 crash in the East River at 60th Stree Heliport takeoff from New York, and others) may result be defective in a riveting (use of "blind rivets" instead of "solid rivets).
Moreover, it is established that between 1982 and 1997, 32 helicopter accidents are related to the "VORTEX" (Vortex Ring State) or state of vortex rings. The phenomenon arises when the rotor descends into his own breath and loses lift, and a sharp drop follows. During the flight, vortices were formed on the ends of the blades. Under normal conditions, these vortices are hunted down and do the lift so that minor. But high rates of descent, the speed is insufficient to drive the vortices down: they accumulate in the rotor and then pile up "packet." The flow becomes very irregular and can recirculate through the rotor. Result: the rotor sinking into its own breath loses lift and the fall accelerated sharply.
If the driver tries to increase the collective to regain altitude, an unpleasant surprise awaits him: in these conditions, the command has no effect. It is also possible that one of the two rotors (upper and back) in between RSV before the other, which indicates a high turnover leading to disaster. One can read on the website "Heliforum.com"
"Vortex or VRS
conditions conducive
In purely vertical descent, when the rate of fall is approaching the average speed of the airflow through the rotor (called" induced velocity "average), however closely the conditions of appearance of the vortex are more general and it is not necessary to be in vertical descent!
effects:
- Air hunted down by the rotor tends to recirculate back into the rotor and in some places (where the induced velocity is not uniform is the lowest). A circular movement of air amounted to a kind of vortex, grows and then "explode" beyond a certain size and escapes to the side. Then the phenomenon starts again. This phenomenon is irregular, random-called "unsteady".
- Therefore, the rotor produces large and abrupt changes in standard and lift towards what is felt to crew of jerks.
- Overall, the lift decreases, thus the speed of descent increases and is difficult to control.
- If the helicopter is close to the ground when the phenomenon occurs, the only effect is a concrete and analyzable intersection unexpected and brutal path of the helicopter with the ground. That is what is often called "losing control".
Good habits to have:
1. Do not get into the "conditions" close to the ground, ie to analyze the wind does not end up stationary relative to the air mass. Blow classic forward motion relative to the ground when the wind comes from aft.
2. If the ground is far enough, several possibilities:
- The most radical: Take the speed by pushing on the stick and not a general decrease slightly. It is not necessary to greatly reduce the general pitch as this increases the rate of fall (though if the height allows the placement of an autorotation can opt out of vortex). Only
perfect conditions for wind tunnel can potentially reproduce fine O-rings which are amplified by increasing the pitch. "
Given these factors, known to all helicopter pilots are worthy of the name, it is clear that a simple examination of the elements mechanical equipment after the accident can not be liable to participate meaningfully in the search for truth.
The truth is often hidden, and it is not always good to say.
The current CEO of Eurocopter, the German Lutz Bertling, rose in late October 2009 a final statement for the helicopter subsidiary of EADS, faces a 70% decline in orders and announced a plan to reduce costs called "Shape". The newspaper Les Echos reported here that the objective was to reduce the cost of "support" functions of about 15%. AEROCONTACT published for its part October 23, 2009 that Eurocopter would see its shipments decline by 8% in 2010 and would reach 200 million euros in savings per year from 2011, one civilian helicopter market valued at some six billion euros evc year a very tough competition from Agusta Westland, Bell Helicopter and Sikorsky. But
terms of civil contracts signed with the United States contains specific provisions to cancel the contract in case of accidents attributable to the device technology, which represents a major risk in terms of additional financial losses ..
In these circumstances it would be useful and fair admitting forensic independent and contradictory, in which trials could be conducted (as is done in-house) on embedded devices subjected to flight conditions similar to those that existed on the evening of April 25, 2009 takeoff Ponte Leccia.
But the investigation in Corsica do not seem to consider that route.
As for accidents in 2003 and 2006, we are heading slowly but surely towards a ban place where families of victims think it would be feasible to review the CEO for implementation of EUROCOPTER endangering the lives of others, or even manslaughter or worse yet.
must expand the investigation and join the one that was recently reopened after no place for the Crash of 2006 in all respects similar to that of April 25, 2009. It should appraise the EC 145 and not merely the wreck of the Dragon 2b which there are only unusable debris. Must be submitted in a transparent and public these devices to checks where the vortex. Hear from pilots and former pilots, aviation technicians specialists, engineers and witnesses ..
In short, we must seek the truth. There is one. The pilot took off April 25, 2009 in Corsica was what is called an "old driver", ie a seasoned pilot, the many hours of flight, and he knew the terrain and weather (less bad has been said during the accident, it was only later that they got worse). The aircraft was not overloaded, the engineer was not in the instruments and cabin. According to statements CEPR all organs of the helicopter were in good condition before the crash ...
So we appeal to the public and pose the question: should we accept this situation?
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