Helicopter crash near Miami Beach

[BandB]

https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/helicopter-crashes-into-water-on-miami-beach/2695435/

Wifey B: WOW!!!!!!!!!

Can't wait to hear the rest of the story. Just feet west and there would have been deaths on the beach and a few hundred yards east and no one immediately there to rescue them.

 

[SteveK]

controlled crash well done. No one near enough to crash site.
That speedboat among swimmers, why?

 

[tiltrider1]

The video is pretty poor quality. However, I am fairly sure the R44 had no floats. With out floats you are not allowed to fly over water unless you are with in autorotation to land. So now we have an aircraft that was flying within autorotation of land but there was no safe land to autorotate to. My guess is this was a tour aircraft that was pushing the definition of the FAR’s and got caught in a no win situation. All I can tell you for sure is a lot of poor decisions led up to this event.

 

[SteveK]

The twitter video from the police shows chopper bank to slow forward motion otherwise trajectory would have landed on the beach on top of many people. Controlled crash.

 

[HopCar]

The video is pretty poor quality. However, I am fairly sure the R44 had no floats. With out floats you are not allowed to fly over water unless you are with in autorotation to land. So now we have an aircraft that was flying within autorotation of land but there was no safe land to autorotate to. My guess is this was a tour aircraft that was pushing the definition of the FAR’s and got caught in a no win situation. All I can tell you for sure is a lot of poor decisions led up to this event.

I’m not familiar with rotorcraft but I see a lot of them with inflatable floats folded up on the skids. Do those automatically inflate when they hit the water or does the pilot deploy them on the way down?

I wonder why helicopters can’t fly over water without floats but airplanes can?

 

[bowball]

I’m not familiar with rotorcraft but I see a lot of them with inflatable floats folded up on the skids. Do those automatically inflate when they hit the water or does the pilot deploy them on the way down?

I wonder why helicopters can’t fly over water without floats but airplanes can?

Helicopters can fly over water with no floats except tour operators. Glide ratio is different though between fixed wing and rotorcraft.

You inflate before impact.

 

[tiltrider1]

Helicopters can fly over water with no floats except tour operators. Glide ratio is different though between fixed wing and rotorcraft.

You inflate before impact.

A not for higher helicopter can fly over water. Any for higher, part 91, 135, or 122 would require floats. On the other hand I personally would never fly over the water with out floats. There is also a big debate about the definition of rotation to land vs rotation to safe landing.

In the 80’s and 90’s tour helicopters flew off the Napili Coast with no floats. Their claim was they could autorotate to land. The land however was a cliff with deadly surf. I never bought into this and all our aircraft had pop out floats. I never lost a life. The same can not be said for those with out floats.

There are two types of floats. Fixed and pop out. Pop out floats can be manually activated but will activate automatically if immersed in water.

As for glide ratio that depends on specific aircraft. A Bell 214 helicopter will out glide any Cessa product but that is picking the best helicopter. The Eurocopter 350 series descends very nicely in autorotation but your forward progress is very little.

 

[bowball]

It sounds like you are very experienced with helicopters; I am not. I learned on an R44 but most of my time was in seaplanes (Beavers). Always that debate which is safer as the slowest I can land my seaplane is arguably 55kts before stall so if impacting something that’s quite fast. Helicopter you can autorotate to a very slow speed impact. But the R44 didn’t glide very far relatively so can you get to land or a clearing? Only been on smaller eurocopters - if I remember the numbers correctly ec135,160’s? Small twins. Beautiful machines.

If I was going over substantial water I’d want floats. Ideally a twin. I did a water egress safety course, and that was a pool not real cold water emergency situation, but still showed how disorienting it would be.

 

[tiltrider1]

I always hated those discussion, “do you want to go down in a sea plane vs a helicopter with floats”. If I thought I was going down I wouldn’t go. LOL!

 

[psneeld]

Used to do full autos to the water on instruments only... that was a rush when they came off well with minimal splash.

The helo in my profile pic was a beast of a pickup truck helo...HH52A.

The instructors chopping the throttle at the very end of those full water autos were steely eyed, hard core helo types.

PS: pop out floats do float the helo OK...most of the time upside down though.

PSS: Finally saw the video...looked like the blades were spinning slow...plus no flare and collective pull to break the last bit of descent so would be interested in the details of the drivetrain issue and final seconds of pilot input....and wind direction.

 

[Peter B]

Yes, I agree, it did not look like an orthodox autorotation landing. The video is very poor - unusual these days, wonder why - however my impression was it might have lost a blade as the initial cause of the whole crash landing. That would help explain the sort of 'out of control' auto-landing. Lucky it was into water in that case. But hey...what do I know..? Just an impression I got. Be interesting to hear more accurate details. My entire knowledge of helicopters is absorbed from my brother, who is an aircraft/helicopter engineer.

 

[psneeld]

Yes, I agree, it did not look like an orthodox autorotation landing. The video is very poor - unusual these days, wonder why - however my impression was it might have lost a blade as the initial cause of the whole crash landing. That would help explain the sort of 'out of control' auto-landing. Lucky it was into water in that case. But hey...what do I know..? Just an impression I got. Be interesting to hear more accurate details. My entire knowledge of helicopters is absorbed from my brother, who is an aircraft/helicopter engineer.

Usually.... loss of a blade is catastrophic on most helos.

Some of the Sikorsky helos with 5 fully articulated blades, with lead and lag movement have survived...but not pretty.

 

[tiltrider1]

Psneeld is right. A loss blade would be catastrophic. It would look like the aircraft exploded.

 

[bowball]

Blade loss, mast bump, etc = straight down.

 

[psneeld]

Blade loss, mast bump, etc = straight down.

Mast bump is a teeter totter rotor issue (like the old Hueys or Jet Rangers)...is that what that Robinson had?

 

[HopCar]

I saw an overhead photo of the crashed copter on the local news tonight. Both blades were still attached. One blade had bent when it hit the bottom as the copter rolled over.

A few hours after the Miami crash another copter went down just off Newport Beach CA. A police officer was killed. Not a good day to fly in a helicopter.

 

[psneeld]

The blade would have bent or broken when hitting the water if it still was turning near preferred speed...if all but stopped, then bottom maybe would have done it.

Pretty much the reason I wouldn't fly helos after the USCG...never trusted the maintenance of anyone who didn't fly in the back with me in horrible conditions.

 

[bowball]

Mast bump is a teeter totter rotor issue (like the old Hueys or Jet Rangers)...is that what that Robinson had?

Yes, that’s what the Robinson has. Mast bumping is a known issue with them. Operators manual bans low g cyclic pushovers for that reason.

And wow, that’s some experience you have had. Amazing. You must have great stories.

I too stopped flying rotorcraft because I just thought I’d never get the time to be proficient as I was always going to be low time. And settling with power always freaked me out a bit! ��

 

[Peter B]

My theory re blade loss being clearly ridiculous if it was only a twin bladed machine, is it possible that the landing was so violent because he went for as much horizontal distance as possible from all those people in and out of the water, he did not have sufficient height to get the blades rotating fast enough for any real control..?

 

[SteveK]

Twitter reply
John Ivan
@JohnIvanF
·
Feb 19
Replying to
@MiamiBeachPD
and
@MiamiBeachFire
That pilot came over me while I was going through stilts ville and was fly reckless less than 20 ft over the water coming sideways even closer to the water. According to your video it was minutes prior to the crash.

 

[psneeld]

My theory re blade loss being clearly ridiculous if it was only a twin bladed machine, is it possible that the landing was so violent because he went for as much horizontal distance as possible from all those people in and out of the water, he did not have sufficient height to get the blades rotating fast enough for any real control..?

No telling why the blades slowed down?.. if they were slower than normal (hard to tell from the video).

In a power off or reduced power situation, using collective control and airspeed with enough altitude (which it looks like he had), regaining lost rpm is the first thing you manage.

 

[Peter B]

I've been onto my chopper engineer brother. He did see the minimal video available, and felt it was hard to tell it was so brief, but might well have been one of two things - lost too may revs before attempting the auto-rotate, or even more likely just misjudged how close he was to the water before he took the required action to rebuild revs. Either way he just belly-flopped in. Never achieved anything like the usual auto descent. Apparently it is very hard to judge height above smoothish water, when you're coming down. I suspect you'd agree with that psn..?

 

[bowball]

I've been onto my chopper engineer brother. He did see the minimal video available, and felt it was hard to tell it was so brief, but might well have been one of two things - lost too may revs before attempting the auto-rotate, or even more likely just misjudged how close he was to the water before he took the required action to rebuild revs. Either way he just belly-flopped in. Never achieved anything like the usual auto descent. Apparently it is very hard to judge height above smoothish water, when you're coming down. I suspect you'd agree with that psn..?

Depth perception is impossible on glassy water but a beach is hardly that. Plenty of depth perception too at the shore. In a seaplane if there are no cues you can not guess when to flare. Without a radar altimeter you just set up your descent rate and fly it down - the bump of the water always comes before you expect it. If you rely on your perception you will crash and flip. But hear a shoreline now issue as you look out. And waves? No problem.

 

[SteveK]

Has anyone else played the video from the police twitter in full screen? You can see what I think I saw was the chopper tail rotating parallel to the beach at the last moment to slow advance to the beach and then like a stall went down. Like a plane hard banking turn.

 

[psneeld]

I've been onto my chopper engineer brother. He did see the minimal video available, and felt it was hard to tell it was so brief, but might well have been one of two things - lost too may revs before attempting the auto-rotate, or even more likely just misjudged how close he was to the water before he took the required action to rebuild revs. Either way he just belly-flopped in. Never achieved anything like the usual auto descent. Apparently it is very hard to judge height above smoothish water, when you're coming down. I suspect you'd agree with that psn..?

Very true about depth perception and glassy water, but bowball is correct.. not in this case.

Often I and other USCG pilots kidded..."better to be hovering in a hurricane than at night on a hot, dark, still night".

Sometimes all you had to look at was a few bubbles or blade of grass to reference on. Plus you were at max power with no margin for error versus when the wind was strong providing plenty of lift. Of course then you had to remember to bring cinder blocks or bags of cement to get the basket to go where you needed it to.

I couldn't see the helo clearly enough to guess the maneuvering by the pilot.

 

[ssobol]

... The video is very poor - unusual these days, wonder why - ...

Surveillance video. Lower resolution and probably lower frame rate.

Saves storage space.

Also, probably older system.