Flight data/cockpit voice on Kobe crash
#22
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Oct 2010
Posts: 666
F/W dude here, who's admittedly out of his element in analyzing this accident. Though I'd really be interested in hearing from someone who regularly operates helos in the LA basin to understand if IFR ops there are even a practical option. I could believe that ATC congestion might wipe out the whole time/convenience argument of flying a helo in the first place. But at the same time, if there was ever a day when going to the trouble of filing and then just flying in the clouds (vs. trying to avoid them) would have been the safer route, it was a day like last Sunday.
#23
Line Holder
Joined APC: Jan 2020
Posts: 41
F/W dude here, who's admittedly out of his element in analyzing this accident. Though I'd really be interested in hearing from someone who regularly operates helos in the LA basin to understand if IFR ops there are even a practical option. I could believe that ATC congestion might wipe out the whole time/convenience argument of flying a helo in the first place. But at the same time, if there was ever a day when going to the trouble of filing and then just flying in the clouds (vs. trying to avoid them) would have been the safer route, it was a day like last Sunday.
#24
That unfortunately echos a vast number of CFIT accidents. So many of them just so "barely" didn't make it to clear the top of the mountain/ridge.
#25
Line Holder
Joined APC: Jan 2020
Posts: 41
#26
Line Holder
Joined APC: Jul 2012
Position: 767 FO
Posts: 62
Highly, highly unlikely. True, he hit just below a crest of a small ridge, but that ridge was surrounded by other much higher ridges. Factor in that he was descending at 2000fpm (disoriented and out of control), the fact that he hit 20-30’ below a ridge was pure, well, I don’t want to say coincident but he had to hit somewhere. As a former Navy helo pilot and prior S-76 pilot in the Gulf of Mexico where we flew IFR routinely during the winter, I don’t understand how he lost control so easily. He did the wrong thing by scud running in those hills, but then he did the right thing by getting on the gauges and trying to climb above the terrain. If he was rated/current/proficient on instruments, he should have been able to pull that off.
#27
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=...&v=Vwk6NaQSuPA
#30
Don't know what a guy with that kind of money was doing using a single-pilot VFR operator in a cloud-prone area. The pilot's certs and ratings seem pretty basic, not sure if you'd expect a professional helo pilot to have perhaps some heavier type ratings?
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