Estimated studying time 7 minutes, 3 seconds.
Sun glare and a required radio frequency change meant it was unlikely that the pilot of a LongRanger helicopter noticed or had time to keep away from a wedgetail eagle earlier than the helicopter struck the chook, an ATSB investigation particulars.
The Bell 206L-1 LongRanger helicopter had departed a personal property at Cattai, north-west of Sydney, for a brief flight north to close by St Albans on the morning of 9 July 2022. About 9 minutes into the flight, because the helicopter crossed Dargle Ridge at a top of about 500 ft above the bottom, the helicopter struck a wedgetail eagle just under the entrance left windscreen.
“The pilot was likely startled by sighting the bird or the helicopter striking the bird, reacting via abrupt control inputs,” stated ATSB Director Transport Safety Dr Stuart Godley.
“Unfortunately, these inputs led to the main rotor striking and severing the tail boom, and the helicopter breaking up in flight.”
Several witnesses described seeing the helicopter enter right into a fast banking flip to the appropriate whereas pitching up, and listening to a number of rotor beats change tone earlier than a remaining louder noise.
Witnesses then recalled the helicopter pitching and rolling whereas descending, with one witness describing separation of the principle rotor blades from the helicopter.
The essential fuselage subsequently impacted the bottom under the ridge in an space of open farmland. The pilot was fatally injured and the helicopter was destroyed by a post-impact hearth.
Footage taken from a media helicopter, which was within the space filming flooding and had landed close to the accident website to render help, confirmed organic matter on the accident helicopter’s left nostril cowl earlier than the wreckage was consumed by the fireplace. Other chook matter and organic tissue was recovered from the accident website.
Subsequent testing of the specimens by the Australian Centre for Wildlife Genomics confirmed them as being from an Aquila audax, or wedgetail eagle.
At the time of the accident the climate situations had been described as sunny, with gentle winds, blue skies and little cloud. However, an evaluation of the time of day (about 1145am) and solar place relative to the plane’s altitude and monitor course indicated that the helicopter was flying immediately into the solar.
Further, as a result of measurement and form of the helicopter’s windscreen, the solar was almost immediately on the high of centre of the pilot’s discipline of view.
The accident additionally occurred because the helicopter approached the management boundary for airspace surrounding the close by Richmond air base, requiring the pilot to alter radio frequencies. This meant the pilot wanted to shift their imaginative and prescient and a spotlight from outdoors of the cockpit to contained in the cockpit to alter the frequency on the radio.
“It was unlikely that the pilot saw or had time to avoid the wedgetail eagle due to sun glare and the required radio frequency change.”
Dr Godley famous that birdstrikes are a standard prevalence in aviation. In the 5 years between 2018 and 2022, 212 birdstrikes involving helicopters had been reported to the ATSB, nonetheless solely a kind of, the accident flight, resulted within the lack of the helicopter.
More broadly, over the 15 years between 2008 and 2022, 24,106 birdstrikes had been reported to ATSB for all sectors of aviation.
“Birdstrike is sometimes an unavoidable and relatively common hazard for all aviation operations, one which is more prevalent at lower altitudes,” Dr Godley stated.
“A sound lookout and visual scanning processes, as well as avoidance of low-level flight and expected areas of large concentrations of birds are key to reducing the likelihood of birdstrike.”
Read the ultimate report: AO-2022-034: Birdstrike and in-flight break-up involving a Bell 206L-1, registered VH ZMF Near Maroota, NSW, on 9 July 2022
This press launch was ready and distributed by the ATSB.
