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Medivac helicopter almost crashing at Ski Apache yesterday

Core2

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Wild vid from Ski Apache yesterday. This pilot and crew are lucky to be alive.

 

CalG

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Cannot load Facebook SDK. Disable any adblocker or tracking protection and try again.

OK, some things are not worth knowing...
 

Andy Mink

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Amazing they didn't catch the rotor on the slope. That would be instant self destruct.
 

SShore

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What I don't get is they had that parking lot feet away, why try and land on that slope?
 
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Core2

Core2

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What I don't get is they had that parking lot feet away, why try and land on that slope?

That first bounce was from the upper parking lot area. He ended up in the lower parking lot. Still doesn't make sense because the lower lot is way bigger.
 

mister moose

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The approach angle/speed and sound/pitch of the rotors in the seconds just before/after the bounce all imply "settling with power".

I'm not so sure. Look at the flagging tape fluttering in the wind in the lower foreground. Look at the rate the visible rotorwash dust is blown and the direction. This looks like a downwind landing, which indicates different issues to me. Wouldn't settling with power require less airspeed, ie flying in your own rotorwash? And look at the slight flare at touchdown with what looks like little additional disc loading. Also watch the descent rate in the last 10 seconds, it appears to be checked twice, ie some control authority.

*Edit:
Looking a little further, the base elevation is about 9,500 feet. Hover out of ground effect for an AS350 (If that's what this is) is 9,450. (HIGE is 11,650) Likely he was well under gross, but what was the temperature? Density altitude could have been higher. Translation for non aviation minded - these were not standard conditions, was in temperature/altitude flight conditions where performance was significantly limited, and there were contributing pilot errors.

I smell inexperience/poor judgement or a combination of both, with toroidal flow as a possible contributing, but not single/major causational factor. Most aviation accidents are a gathering snowball, not a single factor.
 
Last edited:

Bad Bob

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Lost his depth perception to the landing spot? With the dust swirling it would not be hard to do.

They were fortunate. Wonder how many on that bird were ready to walk back to town?
 

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