Tail Rotor Accident - Poor Supervision of Pax

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Re: Tail Rotor Accident - Poor Supervision of Pax

#21 Post by Undried Plum » Wed Jul 27, 2022 12:00 am

I also remember a ghastly incident at Dyce in the mid 1970s when a late (in every sense of that word) passenger rushed at a Sumburgh-bound Dan Dare 748 and went straight into the spinning propellor on the Port side.

Ruddy great big vertical red stripe on the fuselage.

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Re: Tail Rotor Accident - Poor Supervision of Pax

#22 Post by Ex-Ascot » Wed Jul 27, 2022 5:32 am

Undried Plum wrote:
Tue Jul 26, 2022 11:21 pm
I remember the most ghastly AAIB report.

A guy landed his Robbie on his lawn. Got out with rotors running, albeit donkey shut down. Little daughter ran to greet him; he lifted her up to the sky as he was accustomed to do. Clonk. I leave the rest of the story unsaid.
UP that is what my post 7 was.
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Re: Tail Rotor Accident - Poor Supervision of Pax

#23 Post by Undried Plum » Wed Jul 27, 2022 6:53 am

Ex-A, apologies: I hadn't read yr post #7's link.

A doubly tragic story. Things don't get worse than any of that stuff.

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Re: Tail Rotor Accident - Poor Supervision of Pax

#24 Post by k3k3 » Wed Jul 27, 2022 7:33 am

One summer weekend in 1975 I was on duty at VASF Lossiemouth when a Jet Ranger landed, a women got out and walked stright towards the the tail rotor, I managed to run at her and bowl her over before she got too far. She was naturally very angry until the engine shut down and it was explained to her what had happened, she turned white as a sheet.

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Re: Tail Rotor Accident - Poor Supervision of Pax

#25 Post by Undried Plum » Wed Jul 27, 2022 7:52 am

Circa 1980 I punched the kidneys and kicked the back of knees of a pretty dolly bird receptionist of a locally well-known helicopter firm somewhere in darkest kinEssex, to prevent her from walking into the tailrotor of a winding down JetBanger.

She explained to me that the reason why she didn't walk away from the main rotor in the proper way was that her skirt was flimsy and she wasn't wearing any knickers.

There are some things that are very difficult to 'splain to Essex girls.

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Re: Tail Rotor Accident - Poor Supervision of Pax

#26 Post by Ex-Ascot » Wed Jul 27, 2022 8:44 am

Presume one checked that her excuse was correct in the interests of flight safety UP.

And yes that tragedy with the little girl in Gloucestershire was terrible. He lived with it so long and just couldn't take it any more.
'Yes, Madam, I am drunk, but in the morning I shall be sober and you will still be ugly.' Sir Winston Churchill.

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Re: Confession time....

#27 Post by Rossian » Wed Jul 27, 2022 2:55 pm

....I was almost a casualty of this. I'd been getting some helo experience in a RN Wessex in the left hand seat when it was suggested that I be the "casualty" for some dry winching practice on the airfield. After we'd touched down I negotiated my way out of the seat and carefully past the exhaust and unthinkingly went to walk round the aft, I got to the point when I was aware of a black and yellow blur in front of my visor and froze. I backed away and walked round the front. When I plugged in the cabin I was asked where I'd got to and I explained that I'd stopped to retie a bootlace. We carried on and the dry winching went off successfully. That was almost 60 years ago but sometimes in the wee small hours, in my mind's eye, I can still see that black and yellow blur - and shake.

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Re: Tail Rotor Accident - Poor Supervision of Pax

#28 Post by FD2 » Wed Jul 27, 2022 8:09 pm

His sister and friends vehemently deny that he was taking photos. The latest 'theory' is that he ran back to the aircraft to get his mobile which he had left behind. If so, in his urgency, did he have a horrific Rossian moment of disorientation?

I wonder what the damages payout would be if he was found to have been unsupervised as opposed to rushing away from a supervised position? I know that sounds cynical and I can't imagine a family in grief acting that way. Hopefully the local police and CAA people will be able to sort out what really happened and put an end to the speculation. I don't think it should be a lengthy investigation as all the participants and evidence are/is at hand.

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Re: Tail Rotor Accident - Poor Supervision of Pax

#29 Post by bob2s » Wed Jul 27, 2022 11:26 pm

The early 70s in New Caledonia with a B47, the pilot was assigned to take a geologist to the field, and upon reaching the designated area landed on a slope,
tightened the cyclic friction and got out, squatted down to show the geo on the map where he would pick him up. Not realizing that the cyclic friction was
inadequate he stood up into the main rotor and was killed. The geo was in shock and managed to get out from under the blades but had no idea how to shut down the
helicopter, consequently, he sat there in shock until the helicopter ran out of fuel. The SAR watch was activated and the geo was rescued suffering deep shock.

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