Capt. Cathleen Snow – 943rd Rescue Group

2/1/2011 – DAVIS-MONTHAN AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz. (AFNS) — Air Force reservists from the 943rd Rescue Group responded to an Arizona Department of Public Safety helicopter crash in a rugged valley northwest of Tucson Jan. 31.

Around noon, 943rd RQG Airmen were conducting two rescue helicopter training missions in the local area when they heard radio chatter indicating there had been an accident.

“We are an Air Force rescue helicopter with a hoist. Do you need our help?” the aircraft commander asked.

The 943rd RQG is an Air Force combat-search-and-rescue unit which trains to rescue downed or injured service members from combat situations.

The distressed helicopter crew responded yes and, the Airmen immediately returned to Davis-Monthan AFB and picked up pararescuemen to assist with the rescue.

Due to the rough terrain in the Avra valley, local rescuers had difficulty hiking to the accident. The PJs are highly-skilled personnel recovery specialists trained to perform rescues in all types of environments, to include mountain, cold-weather, water, etc.

There were four people on board, two were able to escape, and two were trapped in the helicopter.

“We were very concerned that our rotor wash would cause the wreckage to tumble down the cliff,” said Capt. Brough McDonald, HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter pilot, 943rd RQG.

The helicopter below was teetering so the aircrew put the helo’s main gear in contact with the ground while three pararescuemen jumped out and secured the wreckage with ropes.

The PJs are also trained trauma specialist. In addition to getting to the victims in this hard-to-reach spot, they provided immediate medical aid.

Two of the survivors were able to walk and could board the aircraft with some assistance, while the other two had to be hoisted with lifters. The survivors were transported to local medical facilities.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known.

Posted by Mari Herreras

The Pima County Sheriff’s Department released the names of the other three victims who were hospitalized after yesterday’s helicopter crash:

On January 31, 2011, at approximately 11:30 a.m., The Pima County Sheriff’s Department helicopter crashed near Waterman Road and Silverbell Road. The three victims of the crash that were hospitalized are identified as Edwin Nettleton (58), Paul Panzica (41) and Larry Sayers (64).

Edwin Nettleton and Paul Panzica were released from the hospital and Larry Sayers remains in serious condition.

Mr. Nettleton is a consultant with AECOM, which is an architecture and building company. Mr. Panzica and Mr. Sayers are county employees with the Information Technology Department assigned to the PCWIN project.

The helicopter crash will be investigated by the NTSB and the FAA.

The “2010 Antarctica Helicopter Crash” occurred on the 28 October, 2010 approximately 100 km from the French research base Dumont d’Urville Station. All 4 aboard the chopper (1 pilot, 3 passengers) were killed.

The Eurocopter AS350 had taken off from the French research ship L’Astrolabe approximately 370 kilometers north-east of the Dumont d’Urville Research Station, however contact was lost, and a distress beacon was activated later that day, triggering a rescue response including the Royal Australian Air Force and American personnel out of nearby McMurdo Station.

Bad weather hampered rescue efforts but a RAAF C-130 Hercules spotted the crash site with at least 3 bodies seen at the scene on the Friday.  A French helicopter with a doctor on-board from Dumont d’Urville touched down soon later, and confirmed all 4 on board were deceased. This was later confirmed by the AMSA.

Press Association guardian.co.uk

Wind probably caused difficulties for a helicopter piloted by the former world rally champion Colin McRae that crashed killing all four people on board, an inquiry heard.

A civil engineer, Donald Cook, said the aircraft appeared to be flying lower than normal but the engine had seemed fine. He told the inquiry into the September 2007 crash: “It was quite a windy day. I thought, the guy’s probably having difficulty flying in that condition.”

The crash killed McRae, 39, his five-year-old son Johnny, the boy’s six-year-old school friend Ben Porcelli and a family friend, Graeme Duncan, 37.

The aircraft came down near McRae’s home in Lanark as he flew home from a trip to see a friend.

Cook, 54, told Lanark sheriff court he was out walking his dog when he spotted the aircraft flying low. “It was at maybe three or four hundred feet, quite a bit lower than helicopters would normally fly at.”

Several witnesses spoke of an unusual noise from the helicopter.

Robert Muncie, 54, said it had been making a “clunking” noise like the sound of bricks in a cement mixer. And Anne Cooper, 57, said it was making a noise like coins in a washing machine.

The inquiry will resume on 24 January.

By: The Associated Press

The state of Maryland has filed a $4 million lawsuit against the federal government over the 2008 crash of a state police helicopter that killed four people.

The state claims in the lawsuit that two air traffic controllers failed to respond adequately to the pilot’s distress and contributed to the crash.

The lawsuit accuses the controllers of negligence, saying they didn’t provide adequate weather information, didn’t help the pilot with his approach in heavy fog and were distracted by less important matters. The controllers are employed by the Federal Aviation Administration.

Attorneys for Jordan Wells, the sole survivor of the crash, filed a similar lawsuit last month that seeks $50 million in damages.

The National Transportation Safety Board concluded that a combination of factors caused the crash.

9 killed in firefighting accident in ’08

An Oregon helicopter company blamed by federal investigators for a 2008 crash that killed nine people in the north state responded Wednesday with a letter saying the National Transportation Board botched the investigation.

“We have done our best to do the right thing by the families and will continue to do so as we pursue the root cause of this accident,” wrote Franklin Carson, president of Carson Helicopters. “We will not, however, stand silently by while the NTSB ignores an ongoing safety of flight issue by trying to make Carson a scapegoat.”

The NTSB last month finalized a report that said the company falsified documents detailing the helicopter’s weight, causing its pilot to miscalculate his load and crash.

The helicopter crashed Aug. 5, 2008, just after picking up a fire crew from the remote Iron 44 helipad in the Trinity Alps on the Iron Complex of fires.

The fiery crash killed seven contract firefighters onboard, a pilot from Redding there to oversee the flight crew and the pilot. The co-pilot and three firefighters survived. The helicopter crash was the deadliest in the history of the U.S. Forest Service.

“This accident was about an aircraft that was well over its weight limit,” Deborah Hersman, NTSB chairwoman said at the Dec. 7 hearing in Washington, D.C.

At the hearing the NTSB said Carson Helicopters falsified the documents in an effort to win firefighting contracts with the Forest Service.

That day Carson Helicopters responded with a brief statement saying one manager falsified one of 36 performance charts for the helicopter and that fuel system problems were the cause of the crash, not the helicopter’s weight.

Franklin Carson expanded that argument Wednesday in a six-page letter to the NTSB.

“Carson is not disputing that a Carson employee submitted incorrect information on the empty weight of the aircraft and the performance chart, but the suggestion by the NTSB that it was condoned by the company is totally false and misleading,” Franklin Carson wrote. “The idea that Carson was motivated by greed is also inaccurate.”

He said the company spent more than $4 million to modify and test the Sikorsky S-61, which originally was designed to be a submarine chaser. In the conversion of the 1965 Sikorsky helicopter to the “Fire King,” the company added a 900-gallon underbelly water tank and seats for 15 passengers.

In the letter, Franklin Carson said his company notified Sikorsky; General Electric, which built its engines; and Columbia Helicopters of Portland, Ore., which overhauled its fuel controls, that problems with a fuel filter were causing engines to lose power. But the issue wasn’t addressed until after the crash, he wrote.

Spokesmen for Sikorsky and Columbia Helicopters declined to comment on Carson’s allegations. The companies, along with General Electric, are involved in ongoing lawsuits resulting from the crash.

“GE strongly contends that the engines were not at fault in this accident,” wrote Rick Kennedy, GE spokesman in an e-mail. “Also, GE fully agrees with the findings of the National Transportation Safety Board.”

Franklin Carson said the NTSB ignored testimony from the helicopter’s co-pilot and a history of fuel system problems with the S-61 that point to an ineffective fuel filter as the cause of the crash.

He says that the NTSB was driven to put blame on his company after losing fuel system parts collected at the site and declining invitations to participate in Carson-organized flight tests of the same helicopter model. Franklin Carson said the tests show the helicopter could have handled the load it hauled when it crashed had its engines functioned properly.

Bridget Serchak, spokeswoman for the NTSB, declined to comment on the Carson letter other than to say that the NTSB put its full 175-page report about the crash onto its website, along with supporting documents.

“These materials together represent the sum of NTSB’s response and position on this investigation,” Serchak wrote in an e-mail Wednesday.