Lightning Modifies Tail Rotor

[FD2]

HeliJet S76 damaged by 'freak' lightning strike between Vancouver and Victoria

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/helijet-damaged-b ... -1.6615284

Half a Tail Rotor.png (164.16 KiB) Viewed 1609 times

A commercial helicopter with 14 people on board landed safely in Victoria Tuesday after it was struck by lightning and damaged in what the company's president is calling a "freak" occurrence.

The HeliJet flight departed Vancouver's harbour at 9:11 a.m. and was midway through its routine traverse from the B.C. mainland to Vancouver Island when the strike occurred, HeliJet president and CEO Daniel Sitnam told CTV News.

Two of the helicopter's four tail rotor blades were shorn from the aircraft as it flew approximately 1,280 metres (4,200 feet) above sea level over the southern Gulf Islands.

Despite the damage, the helicopter landed safely in Victoria and all 12 passengers were medically cleared before departing. The two pilots were also checked over and are physically unharmed, according to the company.

After they shut down, I wonder what the pilots' reactions were. Go and buy a lottery ticket quick! It looks as though one of the departing blades tore that hole in the stabiliser. The two remaining blades were at least dynamically balanced which probably saved them, though were less effective aerodynamically.

[CharlieOneSix]

How incredible! You don’t get much closer to a disaster than that.

[Boac]

Yes, talk about lucky! I guess there would not have been much of a real control issue until they slowed for landing?

[FD2]

We/he/she didn't know what damage had been done - pitch change links etc on surviving two blades perhaps. In fact he didn't know the extent of any damage at all which might have been caused by the strike so would have handled the landing just the same as usual so it's fair to assume that the remaining two blades provided enough control to accomplish just that.

How the charge disperses around and out of the aircraft is not predictable - there was a Super Puma which had a bad strike offshore Aberdeen and sensibly flew back to the rig it had just left. The damage was so bad it had to be taken ashore by ship and two main rotor blades scrapped amongst other things.

Bristow S76A+ G-BJVX had a strike about 20 miles out of Norwich heading offshore at 2000 ft and returned to the airport to get the aircraft checked out. I spoke to the crew after they shut down and there were no obvious problems with handling but the main rotor blades were returned to the States to be checked.

A manufacturing defect in one of them could not be detected by any other means than fully pulling it apart so it went undetected and was returned to service with a disastrous result several months later. The AAIB inspector in charge of the investigation gave us full chapter and verse before details were given to the Press. It could have been any of us in that aircraft for that flight which increased our respect for the 'TS' in met forecasts, TAFs etc.

https://www.gov.uk/aaib-reports/aar-1-2 ... -july-2002

Sneaky stuff lightning - much stricter rules followed and we stayed well away from any build ups afterwards - the aircraft's radar was good about picking up build ups, along with rotating NDB needles, offline GPS etc etc and help from Anglia Radar at times.

S76 T rotor.png (236.99 KiB) Viewed 1537 times

[FD2]

Yes, talk about lucky! I guess there would not have been much of a real control issue until they slowed for landing?

I think the aircraft wouldn't have managed a crosswind hover in 30 knots. As C16 says - you don't get much closer to a disaster than that. Very lucky crew and pax.